


oh elope with me in private and we'll set something ablaze

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: (brief mention of harassment), A lot of talking, Age Difference, Angst, Coulson's ISSUES, Coulson-centric, Don't Touch Lola, Driving, Drunkenness, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT AMERICA, Made Up Background, Older Man/Younger Woman, Phil Coulson's Trading Card Collection, Resolved Sexual Tension, Road Trips, Skye being the best thing ever, Skye's POV, Slow Build, Slow Dancing, Talking, UST UST UST, Unresolved Sexual Tension, past Coulson/Audrey, past Skye/Miles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2014-04-01
Packaged: 2018-01-17 19:25:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1399615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Coulson enlists Skye's help to recover something he lost. He ends up finding something else instead.</i> </p><p>Or road trip!fic, in which there is driving, eating, dancing, a lot of talking, a concert, a mission, one visit to the local 7-eleven, a trip down memory lane, and the world's oldest road trip cliché.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Set in a nebulous, ambiguous future because Captain America 2 will Joss all my fanfics.

_The first item in his collection wasn't his of course. It was his father's wristwatch; itself a family heirloom by the time it reached the nine-year-old boy. Though heirloom is too grand a word for such a humble watch._

_He tries to wear it, all that summer after the funeral, but he is too small for it._

_His mother slips it out of his wrist, promises to keep it in a safe place until it fits. Until he grows up. He says No. He's going to keep it himself – he knows how to take care of stuff, has never lost any of his toys, any of his school books. His mother hugs him from behind._

_He decides it will be better to grow up fast._

 

 

\+ + +

 

Skye can tell this means more than he lets on when Coulson asks her the favor.

"Why? What happened to your old card collection?"

"Went down then I did, before the Battle of New York. The Hellicarrier was badly hit and my set of cards was lost among the destruction."

"You die and on top of that you lose your vintage card collection? That stings." Coulson gives her a doubtful look and Skye realizes. "Choice of words, _sorry_."

"Think this is something you can do?"

"Please, don't insult me. This is going to be easy as... wait a moment, give me your budget."

Already she has thrown herself into the details of it, organizing a dozen new ideas at the same time, Coulson watching from the doorframe. When she looks up he is staring at her, instantly grateful. This is how she figures out that this favor is more important than he lets on at first. She would let her off the hook on that, for now, because it's not like he asks for that many favors as it is.

 

\+ + +

 

One day later she's written some code for him, a way to let her know if mention of the cards crops up here and there all over the web.

Two days later she's scoured eBay and less reputable auction sites, posing as a fifty-eight year old man from Davenport, Iowa.

Three days later she's locked the whole collection, minus five cards.

"You're going to go through your savings," she warns him. He's in her bunk, watching her secure the latest auction. 

"That's okay. The way things are going with SHIELD who knows how safe my savings really are."

"Good thing I don't have any," Skye comments. She closes her laptop. "You'll receive the profits of my hard work in seven to nine days, under Urgent."

"It took me _two years_ to collect them."

Skye wiggles her eyebrows, pleased. "You obviously didn't have me around."

"Okay," he looks like he wants to refute her in her smugness. "What about the other five cards you couldn't find?"

She shifts in her bed, hugging her knees.

"I have to warn you. That's going to be a bit complicated."

"I don't remember it being complicated. It took me years, but not because it was hard. I mean, I could do it, so..."

"The cards kind of took off again once Captain America returned to duty, so to speak. I bet the collection was much cheaper, the first time around."

Coulson rolls his eyes. "Yes it was."

"I found the cards, actually but... I've run into some problems."

"Money?"

"No, surprisingly it's not the money. It's that this collecting hobby is kind of analog."

He crosses his arms. "Meaning..."

"The Not So Short version? There's a guy who is willing to sell you #7 but he doesn't do business over the internet – you'd have to go to his house. There's another one who has #15 but likewise it's not on sale online. He does garage sales every other thursday. I have a couple of leads on #3, either one will do. There's a rumor about #4 popping up in Tennessee in a fair next week but that's all I have on that one. And I'm waiting for a man in Massachussets to get back to me about the fabled #18, that one is very hard to find."

"That sounds like a lot of work. If you are not willing –"

She shakes her head before he can finish that thought.

"Look, I'm pretty confident I can get them all for you, if you like. I'll be happy to do this. But I'm gonna need next week off work – which, seeing as we are under the constant vigilance of Big Brother here, it's not like I am getting a lot of work done anyway. Oh, and I'll need a car. I think my van is well past its road trip days."

He puts his hands on his hips, thinking about it.

"Fine. I'll top up Lola."

Skye feels the whole world draw a breath.

"You're letting me borrow Lola." 

His eyes widen. "Of course not. Are you _crazy_? I'm coming with you."

That's – not the solution she has been expecting. _At all_. A trip with Coulson? A week long trip. With. Coulson. She didn't know Captain America cards had that much of a pull around these parts.

"You're coming with me? On a one-week trip across the contry to visit trading cards' collectors? You? With me?"

"That's the idea."

"O- _kay_. You're the boss. If you think it's a good idea."

"As you said, we're not getting a lot of work done in our current situation. And SHIELD still owes you some time off from your recovery."

Skye touches her palm to her stomach without meaning to. It'll be nice having a distraction from everything they have been through lately. And if it is a bit weird (and not too smart; Lola is a tiny, tiny car and Skye is willing to bet they are going to drive each other crazy by day three) that's their thing, they specialize in weird.

"Yeah. I guess it would be cool, some fresh air for a change."

 

\+ + +

 

Skye spends the next couple of days making plans, mapping out routes and researching good, left-field places to eat (she knows Coulson will appreciate the thought). He said he would take care of the accommodation as they went, seeing as they didn't exatly know what kind of time they'd make, or how long they are going to be stopping in each place. Plus SHIELD is good with stuff like last-minute hotel bookings.

 

\+ + +

 

There are other practical considerations before embarking on a long road trip with your boss. A long road trip in his flashy, red car. Flashy red car which can _fly_. There are some things to be discussed, negotiated. 

"Music?" Coulson repeats, baffled. "Is that very relevant?"

"So relevant. Have you never gone on a trip? It's the most important thing. What do you like? I have some stuff I think might be suitable, Motown, jazzy stuff – some Tarantino soundtracks I had in my computer. I can hook you up with some classical tunes if you want something more highbrow. You look like a classical music kind of guy."

"No classical music," he says a little too sharply.

"Okay."

"We can listen to the radio."

"All the way? Check out some of the places on our route, we're going to get a lot of Evangelical stations. I'm not saying it's going to give me Vietnam flashbacks of my time with the nuns but... I'm not so fond of preaching."

His expression loses a bit of edge. "Or when that happens we could do like civilized people and just talk."

The prospect of talking with Coulson for hours seems, although virtually implausible (and she knows he will back down on it), quite nice.

"I'd like that," she tells him.

“Settled,” he says, walking out of her space.

Just in case, Skye decides to load her iPod with Coulson-esque tunes, if only she can figure out what those are first. This trip is about Captain America, right? So she starts with the 1940s, all that Glen Miller stuff. She realizes that's as far her knowledge of the genre goes.

She might have to do a little research here.

 

+++

 

She puts her bag in the trunk, next to his two small suitcases.

"That's all?" Coulson asks.

"I travel light. You should know that about me already."


	2. Chapter 2

_His mother has asked him to move some things from the garage._

_He's fifteen, limbs sticking out, growing at the wrong speed. He's already smart and reserved and on his way to any scholarship he wants. Her mother believes he looks too much like his father, says it like it's the worst thing that could happen to him._

_It never stops stinging, seeing the boxes of his father's things piled up. It stung at twelve. It stung when he did this last summer. It stings now._

_There's the baseball cards, which don't interest him too much. But it's between them – flipping through them because he's bored, doesn't want to advance to the box with his father's old clothes – that he finds it, the immutable face of Steve Rogers staring at him from an old vintage card. He knows who Steve Rogers is, of course, the comics are in the next box._

_(so many years later, when Captain Rogers is unconscious and Phil Coulson is guarding his recovery he thinks he doesn't look anything like the cards at all, and he doesn't look anything like the movies either – the memory of the old garage and the unwanted boxes come back to him for the first time in a long, long time)_

 

 

\+ + +

 

“So... why Captain America?” is one of the first things she asks.

“What do you mean?”

“I know you like collecting old stuff – but collecting is a precise thing. What is it about Captain America trading cards?”

“It's easy: it's Captain America,” he says, mostly grinning, but also concealing a lot, she knows, under his sunglasses. “He's a hero. Not just a superhero, that's easy. What's interesting it's the part where Rogers tried to join the army five times under five different– ”

“Don't sell it to me, I know the whole story. I took the Smithsonian tour,” she tells him. Coulson looks mightily impressed. “I'm kind of a superhero groupie, you knew that.”

His attention goes back to the road. He drives fast. Skye doesn't really mind. The Bus has dropped them somewhere in the middle of Kansas – the team already engaged in some low level mission while they are gone. Coulson hasn't let her plug her iPod yet – she thinks he finds it daunting, what kind of music she might have chosen. She could tell him to relax, she's done her homework.

But she's the one who can't relax. Not just yet, anyway, stuck in a two-seat car with her boss for at least the next seven days, if not more. And she likes this car a lot, but she feels too reverential about it (it's Coulson's _girl_ ) to make it her space.

So she talks.

“But Captain America is well before your time. Why focus on that era, specifically?”

He seizes her, watching from the corner of his eye.

“Are you going to accuse me of over-romanticizing a time that couldn't possibly be as innocent as I think? Other people have tried.” 

“No. That'd be too easy. I think you wish you could over-romanticize it, but you are too smart not to realize _every_ era is a bit fucked-up. It's something else.”

“Perhaps I just really like old stuff.”

That makes her smile a bit. “Maybe.”

He puts on the radio, but so low that it doesn't really matter which kind of music it's playing.

“When did you start? The collection.”

“Not that long ago,” he says. But then (and Skye wishes she could see his eyes) he winces, has to add: “My father had one of them. One of the cards that were in the set I lost.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. Didn't find the card until years after my father died, cleaning up some stuff around the house when I was a teenager. You know how that is.” He sounds to her like he has no idea why the hell he's telling her this. “I don't know why I'm telling you this.”

“I'm sorry, I didn't know you'd lost your father.”

It's tough to swallow; first, the fact that somebody was Coulson's father, that he comes from somewhere specific, because she hadn't thought about that, and then that he died when Coulson was young. Not to mention the shock of knowing that he had been _a teenager_ , once.

He shrugs. “It's no secret, it's in my file.”

 

\+ + +

 

The garage sale is a success but only barely so, and thanks to her, if she might be so humble.

Even though it seemed like a small operation – there were neighbors offering snacks and cold drinks, and the family dog took a fancy to Skye's fake-leather boots – these people were just as ruthless as the eBay assholes she had been dealing with the whole previous week. She had thought a garage sale would be the perfect place to start, dip their toes, not too much drama. She has been in these places before – she remembers accompanying Miles when he wanted some cheap furniture. Couches and chairs and lamps spread over someone's lawn, looking like an art installation.

This is different.

As soon as the dealer saw Coulson they decided to try to trick him into paying more than the tag price. Not that you could trick Coulson into anything, but Skye decided to intervene before it came to that.

They'll have to be more careful next time. Skye needs very little time to identify where the problem lies.

“If you want us to have some luck in these places you should rethink your whole wardrobe,” she tells Coulson.

“Why?”

“Because you look like an FBI agent. You don't have to dress like a loser or a slob, normal people do this kind of thing. You just have to look like someone who doesn't have the authority to arrest the other buyers. I assume you brought more than work suits on this trip.”

“I'll find something.”

It's bad enough that Lola attracts a lot of attention. And by the way she also warned him about that. But he said something about traveling in style and fair enough, Skye likes both Coulson's style and Lola so she didn't insist. She's pretty sure their only other option was taking the SUV and that would have raised even more eyebrows around these parts.

At least the card is in almost mint condition (though Skye is aware there's not such a thing as _almost_ mint condition, as she saw fit to point that out to its seller), it's hard to believe it was printed in the forties. The detail is really strong. Skye holds it in her hands –Captain Rogers' strained smile to the photographer, and it is always _strained_ , in every card– before surrendering it to Coulson. 

She smiles, proud. “This is going to be a piece of cake.”

 

\+ + +

 

So maybe this is not the most usual place for a rendezvous, but people really are that strange, she knows _people_ , Coulson doesn't need to act like they've walked into a trap.

“A 7-Eleven? Really? That's what the guy said. Why the secrecy? Are we buying drugs?”

She frowns at him. “Do you know anything about 7-Elevens? Or buying drugs?”

He doesn't answer, very purposely doesn't inquire about the second part (and Skye could tell him, she is a lot tamer than she looks), he goes to busy himself with some magazine while Skye examines the cold drinks and keeps an eye out for the seller.

The card collector turns out to be a skinny thirty-something in a beige hoodie and flip-flops. So, okay. He eyes Coulson suspiciously – and okay even though Coulson has started following Sky's advice and has at least removed his tie this second time, he still looks _government_ all over.

“Why did you want to meet here anyway?” Skye asks, her voice an innocent tilt. Skye who should have a degree in being friendly to strangers when it's needed. Not that she's normally rude, but she is not this person, this person is a useful skill and a useful mask and she can see her interlocutor relax against the draw of her smile.

He shrugs. “I dunno. It's near my house. You have the money?”

“Not much for the small talk,” Coulson comments. Skye thinks he looks suddenly intimidating against the background of ordinary people. 

“Who's the suit?”

“Don't worry,” Skye says, gesturing to Coulson so that he'll take out the money. “He's paying.”

“It's in pretty good condition,” the guy hands them the card. “This shit is pretty old.”

Coulson raises an eyebrow and Skye has to elbow him gently.

The man finishes counting his cash and leaves. She wants to laugh at the surreal of the situation. She's thinking about drinking something sugary and unhealthy instead.

“I hope buying drugs isn't this prosaic,” Coulson comments, disappointed. He's ready to leave.

“Just wait. There's no way I'm not getting a Slurpee, now that we are here. And some mini-donuts. You want something?” He looks at her in terror. “Don't get all snobbish. Tomorrow we can get some of that organic stuff you love so much.”

7-Elevens are the backbone of the weirdest bits of this country, refuge of the outcast and the damaged. Skye had worked in one for a while, when she had counted herself among the damaged. Like every other bit of important or unimportant trivia in her life it took little thought for Skye to want Coulson to hear all about it.

"I used to work in one of these, you know," she tells him as they walk back to the car.

"A 7-Eleven?" She nods. Coulson looks at her, sizing this new bit of info against his previous considerations about the girl. Skye cannot tell if he thinks it fits her narrative or it doesn't. "How was it?"

"Pretty bad. Graveyard shift, mostly. And I got robbed once too often. There was this time when a couple of kids locked me in the cooler."

She's chuckling but Coulson looks horrified. It had been very scary at the time – Skye had been seventeen – but looking back it's just a story, she took nothing of the fear or the edge of those years with her.

“We have to get you a retirement plan,” he says, helpful.

Skye laughs.

Truth is they have become pretty close since she got shot, since they started keeping their own secrets. She is not that surprised at the way they seem to be comfortable around each other so far, even in a non-professional situation.

They get some good miles before they stop to rest. Skye is glad they make an early night – she's not sure how the whole go-to-a-house-to-browse scenario is going to turn out tomorrow.

The whole hotel business, on the other hand, is fairly familiar. It almost makes her feel like she is in a proper mission, with the rest of the team, and they are enjoying a stopover and the Bus is parked in a nearby base. They can't get rooms in the same floor, though, and that unnerves her. Call it mission mentality, call it the fact that they've been pretty much inseparable for obvious reasons since she got hurt, and it's not like they are going to run into trouble, but Skye would feel a lot safer if their rooms were closer.

Before they go their own separate ways, on the elevator, the strap of her bag digging into Skye's shoulder uncomfortably, Coulson points to her face, amused. There's white sugar dust from the mini-donuts around her lips – she wipes it with the back of her hand, wondering how long he's let her go around looking like an idiot.

When she gets to her room she writes a quick email to Simmons and then she falls asleep, feeling heavy with sugared drink, and to the sound of “Monster Truck Challenge”.


	3. Chapter 3

_The _Captain America_ comics are ridiculous, he thinks, lying on his bed. Corny, mostly._

_But what baffles him is that his father never seemed like the kind of person who would eat this up. His father didn't believe in grand, naïve ideals. He can understand even less why he would keep the comics all these years, and that one trading card. He didn't have the imagination to be such a sentimentalist._

_Now that he is old enough Phil Coulson puts together, from memories and stories from family and friends, the kind of man his father was: gray, unremarkable._

_The only out of the ordinary thing the man ever did was die relatively young._

_The only thing he ever did in his life was die._

 

 

+++

 

Trying to buy the next card is the worst.

Skye is not anticipating that.

They had a good morning – Skye had located a nice little family-run diner through blog reviews and they had had pancakes and Coulson had looked very impressed with her choice. This is not a bad way to travel, she had thought, mouthful of syrup.

Coulson has gone for more casual, definitely, this time, and though he is not about to stop wearing his serious shirts anytime soon Skye can't say the jeans are not an improvement, mission-wise and aesthetics-wise. It's shocking, too: in those clothes Coulson doesn't look like Coulson, which is a good and a bad thing at the same time.

“Let's go over the plan again,” she tells him.

“Skye.”

“You've been a handicap in the last two buys – you have to take this seriously, sir.”

He huffs.

“Fine. The plan is I don't ask for the card. I don't even start browsing through the trading cards until I've gone through the rest of the stuff the dealer might have in his house – jazz records, Civil War medals, it doesn't matter. The plan is we don't let them know what we're looking for.”

“Very good. There might be a future in this line of work for you yet.”

He just looks annoyed at her. And Skye, well, Skye just finds it slightly exciting, to be giving him orders.

When they come up the two flights of stairs there are already other would-be collectors examining the merchandise. And as soon as they step into the room Skye dislikes the mood. But it takes her a bit to crack what's wrong.

There are only guys in the room.

Which was also true of the garage sale, but that was an open space in the middle of some nice neighborhood. This is a dozen guys in a small flat full of cardboard boxes looking at Skye like she was an alien (if she could only tell them) and then looking at her as if she was a piece of meat.

It sends shivers down her spine. A guy shoulders her as he walks into the other room and the touch is a little more than just accidental.

 _Creeps_ , she thinks, pulling at her jacket to cover herself even more. 

It lasts for as long as she's there. None of the core group of the buyers tears their eyes from her. Striving to avoid their attention occupies most of her thoughts now that she is here, finding it hard to concentrate on locating the desired trading card. She's angry at herself for letting it get under her skin. She's used to inhabiting men-only spaces, starting with the hacking, normally has no trouble negotiating them, but this is different. On top of everything she gets the feeling these people believe she shouldn't be here.

As she tries to get away from the bulk of creeps Skye finds herself going through stacks of 45rpm singles by bands such as The Gadabouts or The Mello Tones, or so the covers say. She would find the names funny under other circumstances. Coulson joins her, a expression of confusion and utter contempt on his face.

“What's going on in this place?” he asks, in a private voice, throwing a look towards the group of guys following Skye's every move.

“I _know_.” She's gritting her teeth. Her skin crawls.

“I don't like how those men are looking at you.”

She looks up at him. “ _You_ don't like it? Wow.”

It's not that often that she is genuinely pissed at him, but it's not often that he's said the precise wrong thing. She moves away, finding another bit of memorabilia to pretend she's interested. She can see Coulson watching her, or rather watching over her in a way (and that makes her mad, that shouldn't ever have to happen), but at the same time letting her have that space, letting her be irritated and storm away, for whatever good that might do.

The worst part is: they don't even get a Captain America card out of this.

In the end the guy had been full of shit, the mission a total failure. And that pisses Skye off more than anything; all this for nothing. It's going to leave a bad taste in her mouth about collectors forever.

She waits for Coulson next to the car. She left him there, to make some last minute inquires, in case the seller had some items he was not showing to the general public. Skye had warned Coulson that could happen.

He comes back shaking his head.

Skye looks at her feet, pressing her palms against the cool surface of Lola.

“Sorry I snapped at you,” she says in a small voice. “You were just being supportive.”

He waves it away. Not the incident, the apology. “It's okay. I was looking at it from the wrong perspective, back there.”

“And they didn't even have a single Cap card. Sorry, this one's on me, seems like I was fed bad intel, sir.”

“That's irrelevant right now.”

She sighs, defeated around the shoulders.

“And then people think girls don't get into certain hobbies because, I don't know, we are just not naturally inclined towards collecting. That's not it – we're just never welcome, are we. It makes me so mad. You guys are such pigs.”

She realizes and looks up. Coulson is giving her a bemused look, arms crossed, waiting to see how she gets out of this one.

“Sorry. Not _you_ personally. Obviously. _Sir_.”

“Let's go find somewhere to dine. My treat.”

She snorts. “ _Everything_ on this trip is your treat.” Then, panicked. “It is. Right? Because I don't have the money.”

He reassures her it is.

“Then it's extra my treat. To make it up to you. You found us a good place for breakfast, now let me lead. Apparently this town is famous for its decent budget dining, I wouldn't want too spend too much on treating you,” and okay, that wins him an smile. “How does that sound?”

“Sounds good.”

She wonders, vaguely, if she should tell him he can't fix everything by buying her food but then realizes that would probably be a bald-faced lie.

 

\+ + +

 

He finds a cheap Italian for them. Cheap but more than decent. Just as he promised.

Coulson does that charm thing of his with the waiters and gets a table near the window, a bit apart from the rest of the clients. Skye rearranges the little sugar packets while they wait for the food. Bad taste in her mouth or not the experience has left her very hungry.

“Better?” he asks.

“A huge plate of pasta should help,” she replies and gives him a little, thankful grin.

“Gender stereotypes aside,” he says, pouring the cheap-but-decent wine, all in the spirit of the place. “What do you think about collecting as a hobby? You haven't said.”

“What do I think about collecting? I don't think it makes _you_ lame.”

Coulson chuckles, then stops, putting his glass down, looking a bit startled that he made such a noise. Well, Skye is startled. And sort of warm all over.

“And personally?”

“Personally?”

“Do you think objects can hold that kind of meaning, for you?”

In her hand she folds and unfolds the corners of her paper napkin, matching the paper tablecloth.

“You're a SHIELD agent. And a great profiler. You can make that guess.”

He sits back, studying Skye's face with great care, but without being intrusive.

“Foster homes,” he says. “You moved a lot. And there's your van. Not much room in there. You have learned to live with few possessions.”

“Good. And...?”

Coulson hesitates before making bullseye. “ _Money_. With your limited education I can't see how you could have held a decently paying job. You could have hacked your way into money, except you would never do that.”

She quirks her lips into a knowing curve. 

“The economics of collecting.”

There's a beat when Coulson asks the waiter for more to drink.

“You're very young,” he tells her. “As I said, I didn't start with my collection until a few years back, quite late. Couldn't have, when I was young. I didn't have the money, either.”

“Humble beginnings, uh?” He nods. “Yeah, I kind of figured that out already.”

“You did?”

“What? You're not the only one who can profile. It's easy to tell you don't come from money.” He narrows his eyes, wanting more of an explanation. She's happy to, actually proud of this one. “See, rich boys don't usually like Captain America so much.”

This time it's actual laughter.

“I'm impressed.”

“I have a long way to go. Maybe you can help me,” she tells him, shy at the edges of those words. Coulson raises a querying eyebrow. “I see you walk into a room and figure everybody out in seconds, it's amazing – I've seen it, the way your brain works the answer when you are talking to a stranger. I want to be good at it, like you. I mean, I think I could be.”

“You're already good. You just need to – have lived more. Profiling requires certain amount of experience.”

Skye thinks that he doesn't know where she's been, not exactly. Experience is not something she has shortage of. She finishes her wine.

“I'm still figuring out what I want to do,” she confesses, hiding her doubts behind the empty glass. “I still want to work with computers, I'm good at that and it will always be my first love. But I want to be around people. What we do is important because we can help people who wouldn't get help otherwise. We're the last line of defense, not just literally. I want to be as good with people as you are.”

He sits back, staring at her, severe.

“You don't want to become like me. You'll want to aim higher.”

In a movement opposite to his Skye leans closer, sitting on the edge of her chair.

“This is the first time I've ever heard you talk ungraciously about your career,” she says.

“Not about my career. About the man I've been. It never bothered me, seeing people half my age get promoted over me. I thought I was just not interested. But the truth was I lacked the temperament to really make a difference.”

“Well, I don't know about who you were but right now, from where I'm standing, you're making a lot of difference.”

“Thank you,” he tells her, genuine, closing his eyes for a moment and tipping his head to welcome the compliment. “And the answer is yes. I'll help with the profiling, if that's where you think you are headed.”

 

\+ + +

 

They continue their conversation well into the night, in the hotel bar.

Skye wishes Coulson's choice of poison wasn't scotch; she copies him, but the price to her faculties is a bit too steep. She's going to have to throw the towel in soon, much as she enjoys this. She wouldn't want to embarrass herself in front of him, that's kind of like her worst nightmare right there.

“What's the story with Lola?” she is asking, visibly tipsy. “Where does she come from?”

Coulson stretches in his seat. His hand reaches to the bit on his collar where the knot of his tie would be, if he was wearing one, like he would want to loosen it. Habit.

“Believe it or not, her technology was based on a design by Tony Stark's father.”

“Really? _Howard Stark_? What? Don't look at me like that, of course I know the name of one of the founders of SHIELD, it's in the Wikipedia article.”

“He was developing flying cars before World War Two.”

“That is so cool. How did you get Lola?”

“Oh, Lola is not mine.”

“ _What?_ ”

“She's not mine, not officially. It's SHIELD's property, I could never afford something like that, and it's – it's part of their history, it's not mine to have. I just look after her, take her out on missions, that sort of thing. Everybody just assumes she's mine.”

Skye thinks the world has stopped making any sense whatsoever.

“Wait. Wait, _wait_. You're saying you don't _own_ Lola.”

“I don't,” he repeats, like he was talking to a child. Or a drunk person. “SHIELD does.”

“But... that's a travesty!”

“How much did you have to drink? Tell me.”

Skye is too indignant to hear him.

“She's _your car_. I refuse to accept otherwise.”

“Now, really.”

Suddenly she feels dizzy, like there's too much blood in her head. “Okay, I see what you mean. I think three drinks is the limit for me. I don't think it'd be such a good idea, getting smashed with the boss.”

Coulson looks at her, neutral but understanding. Not that their relationship has ever been professional-looking, Skye knows that – but she very much doubts Coulson realizes. Fine by her, she doesn't want him to act any stricter or more proper, this, right here, is perfect.

“Why don't you go upstairs? I'll pick up the tab.”

“See you at breakfast.”

So far this is working.


	4. Chapter 4

_He's an only child son of an only child son of an only child._

_His great-grandfather, he thinks he had some brothers in Alaska. Never heard from that side of the family in his life._

_He's an only child, son of an only daughter. Daughter of one of six brothers and sisters._

_When he was younger he sometimes worried about the family name dying with him. It was a weird worry for a teenager to have._

_He was an only child._

_Until he was an orphan._

 

 

+++

 

Later she'd be able to tell the story of this trip in meals, in stops at service stations, in the between time.

There's always a roadside diner that looks attractive, always a main street crossing through a small town, the retro-looking restaurants decorating every corner, like a painting. Proto-malls with surprising gems, like the best ice cream of the county.

These things she had never seen before, these things she is beginning to love, these things Coulson has a soft spot for.

She discovers he is very good at that thing where some men can look at a waitress' tag and smile and call them by their names, charming and casual, and the waitress will give them a free coffee refill.

“You're very smooth,” Skye tells him, after _Adelaine_ has gone to fish that last slice of carrot cake for them, for him.

“You think?”

“You know you are very smooth.”

He smirks. Of course he fucking knows how smooth he is.

“It has a lot advantages in this line of work.”

She's a bit hangover (food helps) and she is borrowing Coulson's sunglasses for the day.

“Where is this, anyway? You took us on a little detour.”

“I heard the homemade food is worth it around here. Many little farms all over the county, and places like this diner have started buying local.”

He goes into too much detail about what kind of produce this part of the country is responsible for, and the new and ecologic methods of fertilizing some of the most forward-thinking farmers are adopting.

“You sound excited,” she says. “It's a good thing you are so smooth, otherwise everyone would notice you're a dork.”

The corners of his mouth flicker for just a second.

“We're near somewhere called Osceola,” he informs her, remembering her original question.

“That's a good town name, a great name.”

“Isn't it?”

"You know what? That's the kind of name, if I had heard it when I was a child, I'd want someone from there to adopt me. I did that all the time, it was a bit of an obsession. I used to fantasize about the kind of people who'd take me home. There was an atlas in the orphanage. I would pick random names of small towns like Healdsburg or Yampa and imagine I had parents from there."

Coulson looks down at his fingers around the coffee mug.

"I never say this but I'm sorry, Skye. I'm sorry you didn't have the childhood you wanted, or deserved."

Oh, fuck, she didn't mean to kill the mood. It was meant to be a cute story about what a cute and quirky little girl she had been. She should have known Coulson is far too nice not to pick at the unhappiness lurking underneath.

"It's okay. I'm not saying it to make you pity me. It's my life – that's enough. I wasn't completely unhappy. And I wasn't unlucky. And now I'm here, that's thanks to all the crap that came before. So there's that."

She wants to tell him that's the important thing. She's here now. Not just the general here of her life these days, the work she's doing, her involvement with SHIELD, the bonds between her and the team. Almost as important as that is the particular being _here_ of this moment, this diner, this food, this conversation between them, Coulson sitting across from her looking in sympathy, this trip, _this moment_. This is why the path she had to take doesn't hurt anymore, whenever she thinks about it.

Because now she's here, and there's that.

 

\+ + +

 

Tennessee is deep, rich soil under hot, humid weather. Skye loves the variety of wildlife they come across driving: she can't name all the trees and flowers, the jewelweed and the red cedar, the Virginia bluebell and the shooting stars and the tulip poplar, wintergreen and sweet gums. Most of all the sight of the enormous black walnuts. Most of the traffic diverts towards Nashville but they push on, through acres of farms and fields of poison ivy.

It's already dark when they pull into town, somewhere not far from Clinton. They drop the suitcases in the hotel (the walls are an ugly brown but the rest is acceptable standards and they managed to get rooms next to each other, which Skye finds comforting) and she suggests they go have a drink.

“Reconnaissance,” she says against Coulson's skeptic look. “I know the haunts where collectors gather.”

They freshen up and slip into the town streets, they mesh into that weekend environment.

The bar she takes them to is at the edge of town but they decide to walk rather than bring Lola with them – they know the kind of curious glances she wins them. And Skye decides the strategy here is not to look too much like foreigners.

Behind the bar there's the tracks, freights coming and going every half hour; behind that the infinity of brownish green fields.

Coulson is wearing a thin and black v-neck sweater, sleeves rolled against the warm evening, a white t-shirt underneath. He looks good and unCoulson like that, even if Skye has already got used to him wearing jeans.

The place seems vibrant enough without being overpopulated, and Skye spots an empty table next to the dance floor – because there is one of those, and people are flocking to it, swaying to countrified versions of Rolling Stones songs. She leads Coulson through the crowd with natural ease.

“You seem in your element,” he comments.

“Do I? I've been known to frequent a couple of these places in my time, yes. I'll get us some drinks.”

She never liked the scene though. This is the kind of place her ex-boyfriend and his friends would be found in, come the weekend, back in Austin. And if they ordered enough beer nobody cared they were using the wifi for free, the dissonance between rodeo clothes and the battered laptops in their hands. Skye could enjoy herself in bars but she always preferred coffee houses and friends' house parties. She knows this kind of people, she can blend seamlessly if she wants. 

Right now, the plan is not exactly to blend. Not for her anyway.

She finds a mark and intuition or sheer luck brings her to a better catch than she'd imagined.

Now she's been talking to these guys in the bar for five minutes and she can tell, checking from the corner of her eye, that Coulson is beginning to get impatient. She's too close to the goal to give up now.

“So if you swing by tomorrow...” the younger guy, calls himself Clayton, is saying. His companion agrees, nodding drunkenly. They are both quite hunky, country handsome under their plaid shirts. Skye still finds them a bit creepy in the way they lean into her to crowd her against the bar, but it's your usual Saturday night predatory bullshit and that she knows how to handle – specially now that she's had plenty of SHIELD physical training. Ward once taught her a trick to break somebody's wrist. That skill is so comforting.

_Got it_ , Skye thinks. She's grinning at the guy, all teeth, and fake, but he can't tell. She's always been good at this – mining information without the mark knowing he's being had. She hates this flirting bullshit, but it's not like she doesn't know how useful it can be. She decides to cut it short, though, this is enough, before these two get emboldened and drop even the pretense that they're not looking at the low-cut of her top.

She laughs loud at their polite goodbyes (with the promise of more tomorrow) and walks back to where Coulson is.

“Any problem?” he asks.

She shakes her head.

People are staring at them. It's not just that they are not local, it's that they stick out like a sore thumb. Mostly Coulson, if she is being honest. Despite the casual clothes.

Sitting at this table they look exactly like two people on a secret, shady mission instead of a couple enjoying a night on the town. She has an idea of how to fix it but she suspects Coulson is not going to like it.

“Let's dance,” she tells him.

“What?”

“Let's get up and go to the dance floor. Dance with me.”

He takes a sip of his beer, takes a moment to answer.

"I'm your boss. I don't think it's appropriate."

Skye lets out an ugly chuckle. "You enrolled my assistance to help you locate some old cards for your collection. I think we left appropriate three states behind."

She stands up, offering her hand. Coulson doesn't move.

"Believe it or not, this is strategic,” she explains, because apparently he's too dense tonight to realize she has a plan. “I don't want to dance with you because you're Gene Kelly or... someone else who danced really well. We have to show these people we are not stuck-up Northerners. The collector's fair is a really big deal, and they're not so keen on outsiders in these parts, you know. Make nice."

Still no compliance. Such little faith from him is highly suspect. She realizes it might not be the most pleasant perspective he's had, dancing with his subordinate, but he's being unusually reticent, what the hell is going on in that head of his. He'd normally put more value in her judgment. Skye decides to push that particular button.

“Can you _trust_ me on this? I actually know what I'm doing.”

In lieu of her seriousness Coulson finally gives in, slowly gets up from his seat.

Skye takes his hand and leads him to the dance floor, picking the moment when something slow is playing – because seeing her boss actually attempt fast dancing would surely fry her poor brain. Though she is not sure why having Coulson's arm around her waist and her hand on his shoulder is any less fried-brain inducing but somehow it is.

Also just in case he can't dance at all. Except that he can, of course he can, Skye should have seen that one coming.

“Not bad, sir,” she says, giving his technique an appraising look.

“When on the field it's useful to cultivate a variety of skills.”

“Just – try not to look like dancing with me is the most horrible thing that's happened to you in a while. This might be strategic but I have feelings too.”

She means it as a joke. She's not sure he's taking it like one. He says nothing, just gives her an odd look of disapproval.

She moves easily in his arms. Those years in the south have taught her to dance this particular style (other kind of music, she's lost). But it's kind of distracting that they are touching so much. It's not that they haven't touched before – of course they've touched, she's even hugged him, he's even hold her hand, stroked her face when she needed solace. But they haven't touched like this, in length as in purpose. This is only barely professional because Coulson is keeping his distance, and his touch is hardly felt on her back. Skye finds it fascinating, the smallness of her hand set into his palm, her arm folded around the line of his shoulder, the warmth of another body continuously pressed to hers, even innocently.

Not a good time to get distracted, she thinks, gesturing a hello to the two guys in the bar. She makes Coulson twist so that they can't see her face but Coulson can spot them.

“Okay now. See that guy? The one in the green shirt.”

“I see him,” he replies, his arms stiffening a bit.

“Clayton. His brother-in-law runs a dealer in the fair. Amazing coincidence but I think that's where our Number 4 could be found. This Clayton said that if we swing by an hour before the fair starts his brother would let us check out the merchandise beforehand, maybe even make him an offer before it goes on sale to the general public.”

Coulson stops. They're not dancing anymore, it's very awkward-looking, they just stand there hand in hand.

“What?” Skye asks. “That's good news. That's jackpot right there, sir.”

Something changes on Coulson's face – something that has been there since the evening started. She feels his muscles relax under her hands and soon he is swaying them both again, dancing to the slow music.

"So that's what you were doing, talking with those guys," he says, like he's just realized.

Wait. Did he just realize? Skye brings her brow together in a frown.

"Of course. What did you think I was doing?" His expression is quite explicit. "What? _No_. How could you think that? Do those guys look like my type?"

"I don't know about types,” he tells her. “I just know those guys look _exactly_ like Miles Lydon."

"Ouch, burn. But I'd like to think I've matured since Miles.” She knows she hasn't. “Okay, I haven't really matured, but right now the thing I want in a guy is that he sees the world the same way I do. Miles didn't. Those guys over there? I'm sure they don't."

Coulson nods.

Suddenly his hand stops being a feather-like touch, he presses it lower, against the small of her back. He's actually holding her close now – their dancing has stopped being a simulacrum of dancing and turned into the real thing. It's better now; more bizarre, but definitely better, if you ask Skye, who is enjoying the brush of her hips against his jeans, and the way she can rest her head on Coulson's shoulder, so solid and comfortable, and the smell of his aftershave and hotel-brand soap.

“That's all right,” she tells him. “We've already made an appearance and acted like we are having fun. When this song ends we can stop dancing.”

His mouth brushes Skye's hair for a moment, she thinks. His thumb strokes the back of her hand.

“I don't mind,” he tells her.

They dance into the next song, too.

Afterwards, as they leave the place, they spot Clayton and his friend leaving in his truck, a couple of girls sprinting to join them in a graphic demonstration of the spirit of random Saturday night hook-ups. Skye is a bit hurt the guy didn't wait to see if he could score with her the next day. A bit hurt but mostly generally grossed out.

“That was fast,” Coulson comments, giving her a sideways glance.

“Yeah.”

“Is that what girls these days like, anyway?” he asks, gesturing towards the general population of young, well-built men in cowboy boots and easy smiles who are leaving the bar at the same time as Coulson.

Skye teases him back.

“What? Hot boys in pick-up trucks? What more can you ask for?”

 

\+ + +

 

Number 4 is a little high in its price but since they can get their hands on it without even having to attend the collector's fair they feel mostly in good luck. 

Like always Skye examines the card before passing it on to Coulson.

This one: Captain America in profile, a clear-skies blue tinted background. Very fetching. Well, he always is.

The guy also sells them Number 7, the one card that was supposed to be in the Flat of Creeps, back in Kansas, which is a great boon in her eyes. It looks like maybe Skye will be able to complete the mission for Coulson after all.

“There's also the antique cars fair in town,” she says, when they walk along a street peppered with pre-1960s models. He looks excited like a little kid and seeing how they are ahead of schedule Skye lets him play around a bit.

Coulson spends fifteen minutes talking to a very nice old gentleman on the curb. He's wearing a cool-looking straw hat.

“That was a Hudson Hornet,” he explains when they reach their own car. “1957. That was the last year they made it.”

“Men and cars,” Skye sighs.

Coulson looks hurt. He brushes a tender knuckle over the car's door. “Don't listen to her, Lola.”

Skye laughs; it sounds so different from the fake laughter she's been using with Clayton and company last night and this morning. It shocks her a bit.

They are in a good mood and have plenty of time to take the drive easy. Plenty of time to get to the next designated stop in the journey.

She says: “I call shotgun.”

He says: “Hilarious.”

And soon they are back on the interstate. 

Skye has been reading one of the books on SHIELD procedure he had recommended for over an hour. There's a lot of stupid crap in it (which Coulson had warned of beforehand) and she vaguely thinks about writing her own regarding the _Welcome Wagon_ and how it should be done because the guys who wrote this obviously had no idea of how people work.

“Hey,” she says and Coulson glances at her like he had forgotten she was in the car but that it's somehow a pleasant surprise that she is. “Simmons once mentioned I might need to take some exam before I can become a real agent. Is that true?”

“Used to be. I honestly don't know what the state of things is in SHIELD these days, on that front. Why? That worries you?”

She throws him a smile, both guarded and telling. “I'm not so good with standardized questionnaires.” 

“No? Why?”

“You're the expert. Why do you think that is?”

His hands grip the wheel tighter, color draining slowly from his knuckles.

“Perhaps we shouldn't try to profile each other,” he says, quietly, but with a lot of weight in the warning.

“I don't mind it. I have no secrets for you, boss.”

He takes his time coming up with a response to that. “Even so.”

“But really, the test thing, it's a thing. And I'm not normally a nervous person.”

“I noticed.” Then, more friendly: “Did you go to a school which made you take a lot of tests?”

“No, not really. But I bailed on the last couple of years so maybe I missed all the fun.”

“Maybe that's it. You just need practice.”

She slides up on her seat, returning the tablet to her bag. “Why is your solution to everything that I need practice or experience?”

“Because, in life and our work, that's normally the case.”

It's all important, he would tell her, did tell her. It's important that she says, that he listens. Her problem with testing, barely an anecdote but she is glad to share it. When he had said that they would talk, before the trip even started, Skye had been skeptical: surely Coulson couldn't have meant that they'd spill their hearts out over the endless freeways of the nation.

Apparently they do that now. They talk. _A lot_. 

 

\+ + +

 

They talk a lot, and that has side effects.

Like, she knows Coulson is the last person to pry, but she has left the door open to a lot of questions these past days. She can't blame him – she erased her identity so thoroughly that even the most basic details are missing. She hasn't read his file but at least she knows there's one. Her file is a blank. What was she doing in the fall of 2011? She's not sure she can tell the story any better than the arrest warrant could, if she hadn't buried the connection so deeply. What about 2007? Yeah, what about 2007 indeed. She burned those years from everybody's calendars. She's beginning to wish she hadn't.

He watches her attack the fries that come with her burger, when they stop to dine on the road.

“What?”

“You mentioned there was a time when you were a little screwed up,” he starts.

She doesn't want to think about the circumstances in which she told him that.

“I said _a lot_ screwed up, actually.”

“What did you mean?”

And though she appreciates his not-quite-professional interest and knows she's eventually telling him, she doesn't want to just yet. She's not prepared for him to see her in a certain light.

“I just mean that... you don't want to know.” She thinks that flint of light in his eyes is alarm. “Nothing extremely dramatic.”

“I hope so,” he says softly. What the hell is he imagining?

“I didn't kill a man. So. There's that.”

His features relax. “And we both know you didn't _rob a bank_.”

Skye relaxes too, taking another bite of her burger. Then she decides that, even though she'd rather he didn't ask for the whole story, she can at least give him the punch line.

“No kidding, Coulson,” she tells him, quite seriously. “You wouldn't have liked me, if you had met me, ages 17-21.”

Staring straight at her he says, very intently: “I doubt that statement could ever be true, no matter when we met.”

She leaves the food on the plate, taken aback. 

“Seriously, A.C. Sometimes I think you're too nice to be true; I feel like you are just making fun of me now.”

His gaze darkens.

She calls the waiter, orders some more fries for herself.


	5. Chapter 5

_Once he takes out the clothes from their box._

_He puts on some of his father's shirts, to try it out. Phil Coulson is sixteen._

_His first high school girlfriend watches him watch himself in the mirror._

_“There are bigger problems in the world than your bullshit morbid obsession with your father,” she says._

_She's always saying the world has bigger-problems-than, it's part of what he loves about her, part of what repulses him about her._

_When his mother comes home that evening he's still wearing that shirt – his mother's fingers curled around his arm in a vicious grip, eyes full of betrayal, and this is the only time in his life he thought she might slap him._

_She doesn't._

 

 

+++

 

He knocks on her door before eight o'clock (road trip schedules, she guesses, and sometimes he's just a bit too anal about things) and she's not quite ready.

“One second,” she tells him, letting him inside her room anyway.

Coulson gives her damp hair a long, unreadable glance. She's also barefoot.

“Sorry I'm running late,” she says, because he is saying nothing.

“We have time.”

She grabs her necklaces from the nightstand. She thinks about last night in the restaurant. Feels like she should offer Coulson some piece of herself he doesn't already know.

“You said I didn't have the kind of means, the space or the life to get into collecting,” she tells him. “But there are many ways of placing meaning into objects.”

She turns and he's listening closely. Good. She holds out the necklaces so he can see them in their details:

“This one I bought in Florida. My best friend from way back at the orphanage, this was when I was fifteen, she bought one exactly like it. Suzie. I spent the summer with her and her parents, great people, the kind you'd want to adopt you. And I did. And I kind of resented her for her luck, but I've never taken off the necklace. This other one I stole from a couple who taught me how to disable wireless security systems. That would be the screwed-up phase. And here, look at this...”

She opens a side pocket in her bag, showing Coulson the contents. She holds them in her palm, bracelets, wristbands, made of cloth and of plastic, a couple of them.

“Don't forget the bracelets,” she says, picking them one by one. “I kind of stopped wearing them some time ago but I carry them with me. Concerts, conventions. This one is from participating in a exploit contest in Vancouver, that was fun. And this one I bought in Santa Monica the day I first arrived in California. The blue one is a tech conference-slash-music-festival in Austin, I was mainly there because The White Stripes were playing, that would be where I met Miles, though I knew of him before of course. He's a jerk but I'm not throwing it away, I couldn't. I _am_ a collector – but I have to travel with every piece on me.”

She shoves them back into her bag.

“And the ring?” He asks, pointing, as she sits on the bed to put on her boots.

“It's cool. Isn't it? A birthday.”

“Who gave it to you?”

“No one. I was between places, between jobs. I found myself in a strange city on the day of my birthday. I literally didn't know anyone. I walked into a shopping mall and somehow I got it in my head that I should buy the tackiest ring I could find, as a joke. But it's actually kind of pretty, I think. Bought it for myself.”

“Skye...”

“No, no, it's not a downer story. You don't understand. It reminds me that even if I'm alone, _I'm fine_.”

She finishes zipping up her right boot, hair fallen over the eyes she can spy Coulson's expression with certain impunity, the way his gaze follow the movements of her head. He worries she might be putting on a brave face, she knows, but that wasn't the morale of the story.

She doesn't want him to regard her as a pitiful, damaged thing. She's none of those things. Her life has been a little peculiar, that's all. It is enough that he listens to her stories. 

“All ready,” she says, stomping once to fit the boots, and twisting the ring around her finger, like checking it's there.

 

+++

 

She watches when a particular song on the radio (or among the stuff she so painstakingly loaded on her iPod) pleases him, catches his attention and he smiles absently at the wheel, not knowing he is doing it. He's not even aware she is watching, has forgotten about everything but the road and the song for a moment. Nothing but the road and Blossom Dearie or Dinah Washington or Johnny Hartman.

Like the Captain America trading cards she finds his musical tastes a bit intriguing. Nostalgia should dictate that he liked 70s and 80s stuff, hard rock and punk, not lame AOL ballads, no, Skye can't see Coulson ever liking the stuff – he is far too cool for that. Why the obsession with a clearly earlier generation? He's fifty, not one hundred. He wasn't alive to hear the big bands and then the quieter, soulful fifties. Coulson is old-fashioned but artificially so. He has that classic Hollywood dignity around him, Skye gives him that. Otherwise he's kind of a dork, really. Not that you would know to look at him because, well, _look at him_.

But it does makes him seem incongruent – like a man out of his destined era, born too late for the things he wanted to carry with him. Skye wonders if he even notices this feature, or if it's something so ingrained in him (when did he start doing this? was he a strange teenager rummaging through his parents' records in search of Johnny Mercer tunes? a serious twenty-something ogling over early sixties cars? Skye would have liked to meet them all) he forgets this is not supposed to be what a man like him becomes.

Whatever the reason he's like this (and Skye has a few theories, mostly to do with his father; and maybe someday she will tell them to him) she likes it, can't imagine him being anything else. And when the radio hits Rosemary Clooney's version of “Fools Rush In” and his lips curve upwards she thinks she could even love it.

 

\+ + +

 

The next thing that happens is: this kind of thing only ever happens in movies.

Except.

Storm and flood alerts have the highway closed until tomorrow. 

The smooth pass through the state Skye had predicted is not so smooth anymore. Weather is the last frontier of knowledge, apparently, because nobody is ever prepared for its twists and turns. The worst part is, it's too late to do anything about it, unless they want to back up way too far and try another, longer route. They could do that, she guesses, but Coulson looks a bit too tired.

"There's a decent hotel twenty miles back where you came from," says the trucker who has been kind enough to explain the situation to an increasingly frustrated Coulson.

The twenty miles to the hotel are miserable under heavy rain. They get lost and apparently this is when Lola's GPS decides it doesn't like Kentucky. 

It's well past eleven when they finally locate it. With most drivers passing through town arriving at the same idea they are lucky to get a room; not even SHIELD contacts are of any use in this situations.

Coulson spends an unprecedented amount of time talking to the clerk.

“They have one last room for us,” he tells Skye.

“Lucky us. Oh, just one?” Whatever, she's so worn out, she doesn't care. She hopes Coulson doesn't snore but she doesn't care much about that either.

“One room, one bed,” he says, looking apologetic, but not too preoccupied.

_Really?_

She wasn't expecting that, because it sounds so stupid. So these things happen in real life, uh? Who would have guessed. She'd think it was a joke but obviously Coulson's face isn't.

"And you're not kidding. Wow. What were the odds we'd encountered this particular cliché?"

"But it's fine. Right?" Coulson turns, already taking out his credit card and driver's license.

“Sure. What could be wrong about sharing a king size bed with my boss?”

He looks at her, really serious.

“That's what I'm asking. Is there anything wrong?”

She appreciates the tactful lack of ceremony in the question. He's the boss, and to him this is no big deal, she's the trusted subordinate, in his mind they are professional like that, but he's making sure she's not too uncomfortable with the arrangement. 

“No, no,” she reassures him. “I was just joking.”

 

\+ + +

 

The prolegomena are excruciating. Who uses the bathroom first? Which side of the bed? Who sets the alarm? But also, why is Skye suddenly so self-conscious about her pajama bottoms and her tank top. She is almost tempted to sleep in her bra.

They are both tired and cranky, Skye is on edge, and it's probably not the best moment to do this.

She chooses the side of the bed next to the window, out of habit. It's also good that she doesn't have to look at Coulson when he comes out of the bathroom. Except she can see his silhouette reflected on the window – boxers and a dark t-shirt and Skye's attire suddenly doesn't look so bad, all in all.

“Do I switch the light off?”

She mutters in agreement.

He does, but the thunderstorm makes sure there's a lot of light in the room anyway.

Skye feels the bed drop under Coulson's weight. She has thought the exhaustion would do the rest, but apparently she's too ill-equipped to deal with a situation like this. Maybe it would have been okay if they didn't have days of this absurd road trip behind them – the meals and the conversations, the honesty. They've been together every waking moment for the last three days.

He notices her tension, how could he not.

“What is wrong?” he asks behind her. If she concentrates she can feel his breath on the back of her neck.

“It's _nothing_ ,” but her voice takes even her by surprise.

“This is bothering you.”

“Well...”

“I know this is not an ideal situation. And I apologize for the lack of professionalism here.”

Like the lack of professionalism is the fucking problem.

He means to make it sound light, one of those things they tackle head on together with a well-timed joke. But it only drives the problem home.

She turns and now they are both face to face on the pillow, quite close.

“I think I might be having a problem with this arrangement, sir,” she says quietly.

His face is perfectly visible in this light, the storm illuminates them both. It's a kind face, deliberately so – he'd probably like to have a lot less patience if given the chance.

"We are both adults,” he says. His voice is steady. “This doesn't have to be uncomfortable."

"Yeah except..."

"Except what?"

She stares into his eyes. Even this close they're nice eyes. She remembers why she thinks about things like this one.

"I guess it's not the ideal time to tell you all about my huge crush on you."

"Skye."

She thinks he should sound more surprised.

"It's okay. It's not going to interfere with anything. I'm fine."

“Have I done something wrong?” he asks her, a shimmer of fear in his eyes, like he's responsible for this, for her hurting.

She stretches on the bed, until the warmth of his breath is all she knows.

She presses her mouth to his.

Lips closed, and it's brief, and she can feel his gaze while she does it, but it's a kiss. No way around it. Even if it's such a little, chaste thing, even if it's barely a real kiss, Skye is glad she's done it at least once.

She doesn't know when she realized she was in love with Coulson: it could very well be this precise instant, or a week ago, or the moment when he was taken by Centipede, even before that. It doesn't matter much.

When she pulls away he has his brow furrowed in concern. Just concern. He waits, lets Skye gather herself. His struggle to be careful and kind, and not just tell her to cut it, like she knows he wants to do.

“There are many reasons why doing that is a bad idea,” his voice is soft.

She quirks an eyebrow at him.

“ _Many_ , uh?”

“Where do you want to start? The fact that I'm too old, your boss, or that we are in a line of work that admits no distractions?”

She knows she won't be able to convince him (and he's not interested in being convinced, anyway, he's very much _not interested_ ) but at least she wants herself heard, because these are excuses, nothing more, and if he is going to reject her he should at least do it for an actual reason, like he doesn't feel anything for her.

“The answer to all of those is pretty much the same,” she says and she doesn't know how she sounds so damn calm. “And the third question answers the first.”

“I don't –“

“Don't interrupt,” she says, and smiles a bit when he backs down. “We are in a dangerous line of work. What the hell does it matter if you are twice my age? I could die tomorrow. In fact I could have very well died when Quinn shot me. You never know how much time you'll be given with the person you care about, it's stupid to think age makes any difference. And distractions? Maybe you don't trust me as an agent but I do trust you as an agent, I would trust you my life, even if we were in a relationship. As for you being my boss, _oh please_.”

“Are you done?” he asks gently.

“I am, sorry, that was my big speech. But I know nothing of that matters, they are just excuses, and the truth is you don't want me, and you should just say that, and I'm sorry I kissed you, it was selfish and I crossed a line, just because I wanted to do _that_ even though I knew you didn't.”

“I'm not angry,” he tells her, there's an edge of desperation here.

“Sorry I... I should just let you sleep. You must be very tired.”

She turns her back to him.

She feels the bedsprings dip underneath her as he turns a bit.

"Skye..."

" _Coulson_. If you're just going to embarrass me I'd rather you didn't say anything. It's not that big a deal. I don't know why I even mentioned it."

Silence hangs between them like a veil and Skye wonders if that's it, the end of it. But then he is talking to her again, and his voice is even sweeter and that's much, much more horrible.

"You are right, everything you just said. Those _excuses_."

"But..." Because she can hear it in his mouth.

"You have to know how important you are to me, how much I care about you. But this, this is never happening."

She closes her eyes. It's almost comforting, the just _knowing_.

"I know. I mean I _knew_ that. I didn't tell you because I thought you might do something about it. I'm not dumb. I told you so you would get it, if I get really weird and tense sharing a bed with you."

Even though she has her back to him Skye swears she can hear the smile.

"I'll be okay as long as you are okay." 

She sucks in a breath. Thinks about it. She wouldn't lie to him. "Yeah I'll be okay."

And that's that. Skye curls into herself, pulling away from where Coulson lies, and she is surprised when, a few minutes later, she finds herself drifting into deep sleep, disappointed but comfortable, and safe.


	6. Chapter 6

_You don't understand, you weren't married to him, his mother says._

_How can you say that? The man is dead, for fuck's sake._

_This is not the first time he's sworn in front of his mother but it might as well be, from the look on her face._

_She's tried to throw it all away; his clothes, the books and comics, even the cards. She says it's because it's not been good for him, holding so tightly to some pieces of private memorabilia, instead of facing who his father was, bad as well as good._

_That's not the problem, his mother is saying and he feels like she's just saying some line in a film, the problem was that, even when he was with us, he was never really alive._

_He's still sixteen, first and last time he storms out of his kitchen, leaving his mother alone in this their shared place._

 

\+ + +

 

The morning has been awkward, but the drive doesn't have to be.

Coulson catches her pulling at her sweater to wipe a dust mark off Lola's hood. He smiles and goes to find them some coffee.

(The morning _was_ awkward: Skye had been on her best behavior and miraculously didn't move an inch from the edge of the bed. Surprisingly enough when she woke up she found Coulson's arm snaked around her waist – he wasn't pressed against her or anything, there was space between their bodies, but the arm was resting there, his hand over her stomach. It had felt good but Skye didn't know what to do about it, couldn't risk doing anything about it really, so she pretended to sleep until Coulson woke up. He did, and took his time realizing the picture; he removed his arm slowly, fingertips brushing against her hipbone, skin exposed below the hem of her top, and Skye could hear him make an exasperated sound. He studied her face to see if she was feigning – good instincts, that man – but Skye was too good at it. After a long while she felt the bed lifting under her and then she heard the shower.)

She's still waiting on info about that seller in Massachusetts. They only have to drive east and be there around the weekend. That leaves a lot of room for self-reflection and other horrible things.

“Ready?” he asks after they have breakfast. His voice is _too sweet_ for her liking.

 

\+ + +

 

Indiana is familiar, she tells him.

“Foster home?” he asks.

“This landscape. Can you imagine? I thought I was going to die from the shock of so much space, after St Agnes.”

Coulson finds this landscape boring, if indeed very dignified. He tells her this.

“Good family?” he inquires after a while.

She rests her head against the windowpane. ( _It will leave a mark on the glass_ he had said the first day, then he let her do as she pleased, mostly)

“Best that ever had me,” she says, sucking in a breath. “Went back to St Agnes after one month.”

“Agent Avery's shadow protocol.”

“I know that _now_.”

Indiana is familiar, she thinks. Private, pastoral roads, soybean, and corn up to your shoulder, up to the roofs of cars. Skye remembers. Familiar like something she could never have.

 

\+ + +

 

In absence of any other strategy they keep talking. She thinks if she runs her mouth enough she can normalize this situation – maybe distract him enough that he'll forget all about what she said and did in that hotel room.

When Coulson gets into a lull in his driving (badly maintained roads, lack of traffic, the same kind of crops for miles on no end, the unbearably dull good weather) they start criticizing the talk show they are listening to.

That, of course, leads them to a discussion about The Rising Tide radio communications.

“You listened to my podcasts?” Skye asks, between embarrassed and flattered.

“We were monitoring the Rising Tide way before Mike Peterson. You were very vocal about your dislike for SHIELD agents in dark suits.”

She feels her face flush – which she suspects is exactly what Coulson wanted, judging by the tone of his voice.

“Sorry about that. What did you think of my show, though? I know it wasn't high rhetoric, but I think they were pretty good shows.”

“I think...” she can see him work the words with difficulty. “I think you sounded incredibly naive.”

She looks out of the window. They haven't passed a town in hours.

“I know you mean it as an insult, but I'm going to take _naive_ as a compliment, if you don't mind.”

He shakes his head. “It used to be an insult. These days I'm not so sure anymore.”

And it's almost like they have forgotten they are supposed to be awkward around each other, that those are the expectations here.

With Coulson, though, Skye kind of always goes for broke: “Well, these days I think old-fashioned and incredibly naive might not be such a bad combination after all.”

It's not the most uncomfortable smile she's ever got from him, so it's a win.

“I do miss it a bit,” she tells him. “My podcast. I could just spout all the stuff that was on my mind, and even the days when I had no one to talk to, I felt like the whole world was listening.”

And she's stopped trying to understand, what it means, when Coulson looks at her like he does now.

 

\+ + +

 

They have survived the day.

The morning was awkward. But the rest of it wasn't.

By the time they walk into the hotel (and thank fuck, _two_ rooms this time) it's mostly forgotten, or so it seems – Skye believes part of it she imagined, for sure. Or they wouldn't be able to walk and talk together, make jokes, like they do now.


	7. Chapter 7

_He takes the box with his father's things, hidden at the bottom of the trunk, when he leaves for college._

_When he leaves both mother and high school sweetheart behind. He's just been offered a full scholarship by the army – of course later he will find out it wasn't the army, it was SHIELD._

_He doesn't tell his mother he's taking it, the box. What does it matter? She is never going to look for it in the garage. He envies the way she could always just cut it off, that part of her life with his dad, like it was a limb with gangrene. When he is older he'll suspect it was never because it hurt any less, for her. It's because it did, differently._

_After all she knew him, and he didn't, not really._

_That's why he can obsess with him and love him in a way one is only allowed to love the idea of something rather than the thing itself, what his father represented rather than his father as a man. Perhaps his father's life had been such an stupid, fucking disappointment that the young man he is now is trying to make up for it, trying to give it some meaning after the fact._

_The fact is he drives away from his mother's house, taking his father's old shirts, his books, his baseball cards._

_He's wearing his grandfather's wristwatch._

 

 

\+ + +

 

Skye has never seen that expression on his face.

It makes her stop in her tracks, it pushes a sharp breath out of her lungs, when she comes back with their coffees and he is making that face, something he's reading on her laptop. He borrowed it while she went to order the drinks, to check the local news on route (they have learned a lot since flash floods in Kentucky).

“What's wrong?”

“Wrong? Nothing.”

She tries to peek, Coulson's eyes glued to whatever is on the screen.

“What are you reading?” 

“Nothing, it's just some –“ he stops, like he couldn't work out what it is that he's meant to be saying.

He pulls his chair back a bit, letting Skye take a look at the screen. She can tell it's physically hurting him to do so.

“It's some concert notice. Where is this? _Toledo_.” She reads the headline: “ _Renowned performers visit Toledo_. What's this? What am I looking at?”

It's a picture of a group of musicians, in their usual musician poses, she guesses (posing besides their instruments, looking more elegant and learned and somehow relevant than normal people). There's a woman in the center of the picture, prominently featured, standing tall holding her cello in front of her with pride.

“Someone I used to know,” Coulson offers.

He's not looking at her. He's looking at the screen.

And Skye is way too quick.

“Okay. Oh, know like in _know_.”

He doesn't bother denying it. He doesn't make an inappropriate joke – this alarms her. There's just this kind of vacant expression on his face.

“That's near here. Do you want to go see her play?”

“I said I _used to_ know her.”

“What happened? Why don't you know her anymore?”

“Because I died,” he says flatly.

“So what?”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“But–“

He has already gathered their things and started for the door. She is still holding both their coffees in paper cups.

They are out in the street before Skye can pry more information out of him.

“I don't understand,” she says. “You're alive now. Why can't you just– ?”

“Because it doesn't work like that for people like me, Skye. She is a civilian. She doesn't have the clearance to know.”

“That's such bullshit.”

He stops – almost making her crash into him. A bit of coffee spills over and Skye has to lick the lid on her cup.

“This conversation is becoming too personal,” Coulson tells her, dead serious.

“Yeah, because we totally don't have any of those.”

He starts walking again. Skye follows, suddenly singleminded. She wonders if she's overcompensating. She decides she isn't, because this is not about her, not even one bit.

“The concert is tonight, right? Look, it's early and we're barely four hours from there. We can detour and find a hotel. Change into some decent clothes and go to the concert. You know that's what we have to do.”

He fixes her a hard gaze. “You're serious. Why are you doing this? Why are you pushing me on this?”

“Because I saw the way you looked at that picture a moment ago,” she tells him. Coulson stops looking angry and starts looking... _something else_. “And because I think it's unfair something stupid like SHIELD protocols could ever come between people. She was lied to. Don't you think that's also unfair to her?”

After that it's easy.

After that he doesn't resist the idea. He is skeptical, but he doesn't resist.

Skye punches in the new destination and Lola's GPS does the rest.

She kind of doesn't look at Coulson during the whole journey and Coulson kind of doesn't look at her.

“I can't believe you've talked me into this,” he mutters, once they can see the exit for Toledo.

_Neither can I_ , she thinks. 

But this is not about her.

 

\+ + +

 

Coulson doesn't look specially nervous, that's the surprise. If Skye was about to see her ex-lover who thought she had died in the Battle of New York she'd be a nervous wreck. Fortunately her love life is depressing but not that complicated.

They are killing time before the concert, having a cup of (very weak, ugh) coffee in front of the concert hall. Coulson is wearing his dark blue suit without a tie and Skye, though she had nothing 100% appropriate for the situation, was glad she had packed one dress. She can't really help she only owns a pair of boots. She's not entirely sure why she's going with him to the concert, but neither of them questioned that decision – though neither of them is sure who made it, in the first place.

He is stirring his coffee, the spoon making a _clink_ sound every time he absentmindedly lets it touch the rim. He's been doing this for some minutes. He's also been staring at Skye's face for some minutes. At first Skye ignored it but now it's obvious it's no accident.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I'm intrigued, Skye.”

“Intrigued?”

He finally stops stirring the coffee.

“I have to say: your approach to this situation is very surprising.”

“Because of what I told you the other night? Because I'm not jealous?” She says, like it's humorous. But then she drops her shoulders and her voice is soft. “Of course I'm jealous. But I'm not an asshole. You had a relationship with this woman – I have no right to assume my feelings come before that. And. Well. I just want you to be happy.”

He keeps looking at her.

Perhaps she should be even more upfront about this.

“And we are friends, right?” she says, hating the neediness in her voice. “Even though you are my boss and I – I mean, I don't know if you think of it that way but – I'd like it if you could consider me your friend.”

He puts his hand over hers. His thumb slides over the bridge of her fingers and she draws a breath that could be a sigh.

“We're friends,” Coulson tells her.

And it might not be _enough_ , but it's more than enough.

 

\+ + +

 

Granted, Skye has never been to a classical music concert before, so it's not like she can compare, but she thinks these guys are pretty good.

And it's easy to see why anyone would fall in love with the woman playing the cello right now. Someone with that ability, capable of creating something so painfully beautiful out of thin air and long fingers and pages of notation... well, no wonder. For the duration of the concert even Skye feels herself a little in love with her. She doesn't need to see Coulson's transfixed expression as the evening moves into Tchaikovsky pieces to know what kind of face he is making – and truth be told she is a bit glad for the darkness in the auditorium, a bit glad she can't see him properly, being a bit petty about it. Skye feels a sharp bite of yearning but it's not for herself, it's _mostly_ for Coulson and all the things he has lost and she hopes he can get some of them back somehow. If nothing else she is resolved to find all those trading cards for him even if it takes her tyears.

“This is the first classical concert I've been to in my life,” she says, when they leave their seats at the end of it. “But even I can tell this was pretty kickass.”

Coulson is not really listening to her, understandably distracted. Not an entirely bad look on him. Skye thinks Coulson in love is a beautiful sight.

“What do you want to do now?” she asks him.

“I don't know. I want to see her.” But he hesitates. “But I don't know if I should let her know I'm alive, I don't think so.”

“It could be quite a shock.”

“But I still want to _see her_. To check she's fine.”

“I understand that,” Skye says, but she doesn't place a lot of confidence in Coulson's resolve of just seeing her. She imagines romantic scenarios where he reveals himself, probably coming from under the shadows, and the woman faints in his arms and happily ever after. Happily ever after in Ohio. She tries to be gracious about it.

“I didn't even know she was in the Cleveland Orchestra now,” he comments, to himself rather than Skye. “I thought she was still in Portland.”

“It's one of the best in the world... according to tonight's brochure anyway,” she informs him, leafing through the thing.

Coulson is walking towards the stage door. Skye is trying to walk away from this place.

“Are you going to be fine out here?” he asks her.

“Sure. I'll walk back to the hotel. It's a nice night. You go do your business.”

“I still don't know what I'm going to do.”

Skye reaches one hand to his jacket, sliding her fingers along the lapel, as if she meant to straighten what's already straight.

“You'll figure it out,” she says, her voice a thread, but sure of it.

“Skye...”

She shakes her head. “Hey. Good luck.”

She would like to do something sweet and bold, like kiss his cheek. But that would be making the moment about her.

She walks away, not quickly, but resolved.

Then, a few more steps and she's completely deflated, watching the people who leave the auditorium. She couldn't be more different to these people. She wonders if this is how they met, Coulson and the woman he still very obviously loves. He blends into this crowd easily. Just as she does in Tennessee second-rate joints.

She looks down at her feet, wonders if it's the moment to buy a new pair of boots. These ones have been everywhere.

And she's still wandering around the front entrance when she finishes reading the information on the concert program.

_Shit_.

“Shit.”

She runs, hoping to get to the stage door before it's too late, draws a breath of relief when she sees it's not, the members of the orchestra haven't come out yet. And Coulson is here, at some distance, kind of subtly lurking around. He's leaning behind the corner, so that he can't be seen but he can peer around and have a good view of the artists' entrance.

“Coulson. Coulson!” She says breathlessly, grabbing his arm and dragging her further away from there.

“What? What's happened?”

“Coulson.”

She doesn't know if she _can_ stop saying his name, or what she is supposed to say next. She wonders if he'll ever forgive her. She doesn't want the next moment, she wants to stay in this one, the one before he maybe won't be able to forgive her.

But she is no coward, so she opens her mouth again.

“I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Coulson. I hadn't finished reading the whole thing and – I should have done a background check. Why didn't I think of that? I'm so sorry, it's all my fault.”

“Calm down. What are you talking about?”

She hands him the pamphlet, pointing at the text under _PERFORMERS_.

Coulson takes a beat to find what Skye is trying to show him. He mouths the words.

“...is expected to go on tour in the States this next summer, performing chamber music alongside her... _husband_ Joseph Francis Oakes, winner of the Clara Haskil International Piano Competition. Her husband. I see.”

“I'm so sorry,” she says, takes a lot not to say it a hundred times.

“That's–“ he looks unsure of what to say next. “No, it's normal, I mean, it's understandable. A bit fast, I guess. Husband. When did that –?”

“You're not having a nervous breakdown, are you? Because I don't think I can deal with you having a nervous breakdown.”

At least that gets him to stop staring into a faraway nothing and focus his gaze on Skye.

“No, Skye. I'm not having a nervous breakdown.”

“Good.”

He looks down at the piece of paper in his hands again. How neither of them thought of reading it before? Skye kicks herself mentally, but she also kicks Coulson. He's normally so careful, so let's-have-all-the-facts-before-we-go-in during their missions. This is such a lapse. She's sure he's thinking something along the same lines, the line of his brow set in a disbelieving curve.

“Coulson...” because the only other option is _i'm so sorry_ again.

“Give me a minute here.”

He closes his eyes a moment, rubs them with the inside of his wrist.

“Do you want me to go, leave you alone?”

She's already walking away before she finishes asking but he reaches a hand to her elbow, stopping her.

“ _Don't._ ”

 

\+ + +

 

They walk back to the car in complete silence.

And once inside the hotel Coulson offers a change of plans.

“Let's check out now and drive through the night.”

Hell, it's not like Skye is going to go against his desires after what just happened. “I'm not tired if you aren't.”

Hands in his pockets: “I just want to get out of this town.”

Skye nods. “You go get our bags. I'll get us sorted out here.”

“Thank you.” He gives her a thin smile and touches her back as he walks towards the elevator.

 

\+ + +

 

She thinks the night is a bit too beautiful. Her logic: if Coulson is sad (and he is and it's kind of killing her), clear skies and starlight shouldn't be attempting to mock him like this. Even so, against her will, Skye feels herself be won over by the sight. Even the noise of the occasional truck cannot diminish the beauty of the route.

They've stopped the car next to a gas station but far enough that the light doesn't get in the way of... well, Skye guesses they are sort of stargazing right now. They are drinking cans of diet soda while leaning on the trunk of the car; there's a nice breeze but otherwise it's warm. It is that weird a night.

She's the one who breaks the silence. It must be around two in the morning.

“It's nice out here,” she says. “We should have driven at night more.”

“Yeah,” Coulson agrees, looking up. “I feel like we have been missing out.”

She realizes she has Coulson's jacket over her shoulders; she didn't have time to change out of her lame $26.99 dress, but she's not sure at which point Coulson decided she must be cold, at which point he made the gentlemanly offer and she took it. She doesn't remember taking it. She hugs herself with it now, pulling at the lapels.

“How are you holding up?” she asks him.

He makes a noncommittal sound. It doesn't come out completely horrible so Skye's heart sits a bit less heavily for it.

"Hey, let me just say this one thing, and I'll shut up about it forever, because it's none of my business,” she starts. “It's _unfair_. You were at a disadvantage: you were dead. You couldn't – couldn't compete."

"I'm okay, Skye. I'm better than okay. I'm _fine_."

"How can you be?"

He straightens up, turns his body to face her.

“I don't know what you thought was going to happen tonight but... I didn't go to that concert hall because I wanted for us to get back together, continue the relationship.”

“ _You didn't_? I mean, you don't need to tell me, it's private.”

“No, that was not the intention. I went there because I thought I owed her, it's like you said, she was lied to as well, not just me.”

“You don't have to put on a brave face,” she tells him. “If you're disappointed, that's only natural.”

He is soft around the eyes.

"Listen to me. Up until tonight I had felt so responsible. This amazing woman... I thought her life had been destroyed by SHIELD lying to her. But she's okay. She's happy, she has a life. She's _moved on_. I was wrong. It's tempting to think we are the most important thing in another person's world, but that's life. Sometimes we make things in our mind to be greater than they really were."

"But you loved her."

"I did. When I was with her I could be someone else. I didn't know it then but... I don't very much like the person I was before. I guess I held on to the idea of her, of what we had, because it gave me the illusion I could choose between this life and an ordinary one. But it was never an illusion, I _could_ choose. All that time. I was never going to choose her, I know that now. Maybe I'll tell her one day, when I can be sure I'm doing it for her, not just for myself."

Skye can't say anything to that for a long time, then:

"If it's any consolation, as someone who spent most of her life wishing for an ordinary life... you get over it. Sometimes you find other stuff, stuff that seems more important all of the sudden."

She shrugs to herself, shoving her hands into the pockets of Coulson's jacket, hugging her chest. The jacket smells like him and Skye turns the collar up, buries her face in the fabric.

“Thank you,” she hears Coulson say. It yanks her right out of her thoughts.

“Why are you thanking me? Shouldn't you be angry with me? Please don't be angry with me.”

“I'm not angry. I'm grateful,” he replies, and he sounds rational enough; he sounds honest. “You pushed me to do this. And it was the right thing to do. I feel it was important, for me, this moment. There was something missing and it was this. I could have never found it without you.”

“You sure you're okay?”

“Trust me.”

_I do_.


	8. Chapter 8

_SHIELD offers to pay for he treatment._

_It's too late but he accepts anyway, if it means that his mother can at least be comfortable._

_It's too late but he thinks they are being generous, paying the hospital bills, because he's only been made a proper agent recently. The organization owes him nothing, and he already owes them his training._

_Years later he'll still have that first SHIELD badge, the logo so different from one era to the other. It will not make him feel old as much as inconsequential – like he slipped through history, unseen and unknown._

_He throws himself into his work when his mother gets sick._

_He's always been a dedicated boy, that's what the organization likes about him._

_He has a bright future, they say, that Phil Coulson, if he keeps working like this._

_He works _harder_ than that._

_She dies the same week he is promoted to Level 3._

 

 

\+ + +

 

“We have a mission,” he announces, and they are somewhere in Pennsylvania.

“An actual mission?”

“It's not far.”

 

\+ + +

 

Skye is glad for the chance, this is what they should be doing, and perhaps it's a good thing that Coulson gets some distraction right now, but the specifics make her stop.

“She's a kid,” she says, staring at the file Coulson was sent by the SHIELD agents in charge of the case.

“It's always complicated with children,” he says, putting on his tie, making the transition from Road Trip Coulson to _Agent Coulson_. “Fortunately there are very few underage gifted.”

“Have you ever had to–?”

“No. This would be the first.”

She can't help but think back to her own story; how she was supposed to be a gifted when she was a baby, but then she never developed any power.

In the case of this girl the other problem is that her particular power is also a pretty dangerous one.

“Last time we dealt with someone who could manipulate fire it didn't precisely go our way,” Coulson says, grimacing as he opens the trunk of his car.

“No,” Skye agrees. She doesn't want to remember that case at all; without meaning to her fingers rub her wrist, where the electronic bracelet used to sit. A good man lost his life during that case (and Skye can't be sure it wasn't in part her fault, if she had been more honest the investigation would have gone faster and –) and she lost Coulson's trust for a while. “Where do they think her powers come from?”

“No idea. But sometimes we don't find that out until later.”

“Maybe she was born with powers. Has there ever been someone like that before, someone you can't explain away through an unfortunate nuclear accident or the Super Soldier Serum?”

“I don't recall any instance, no. Why, do you want to take a peek at the Index?”

“Nope. The Index gives me the creeps.”

He opens a small metal case he's been traveling with. Skye watches in amazement as he loads the dendrotoxin pistol.

“You travel with a Nite Nite Gun?”

“Of course.” He looks at her like she should be carrying one too.

“You're not going to shoot a thirteen year old, right?”

“Of course not.”

 

\+ + +

 

“What the hell is the NSA doing here?” he asks the two men in suits. Different kind of suit to SHIELD, of course. From where Skye is standing it seems like this is not the first time Coulson has had to deal with these people.

“It's a national threat. I thought you guys were restructuring.”

“She's not a threat, she's a kid.”

It takes every bit of inter-agency diplomacy for Coulson to get the other team to back off.

They are buzzing around the girl's house, but fortunately there's no press or local authorities. It's a blue-collar suburb, single parent, only child – Skye makes calculations in her mind; she's seen the girl's school report, good grades until a year ago. Maybe there's the connection.

The girl's mother is waiting inside, in the hallway, eyes fixed on the door to her daughter's room, upstairs. There's a backup SHIELD team by the stairs, awaiting their orders, or rather Coulson's orders in this case.

“Who are you?” the mother asks.

“We're with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division,” Coulson tells her.

“I don't –“

“We're friends,” Skye hurries to explain.

“We're here to help,” Coulson adds.

The woman is clutching a bandaged hand. Coulson examines it, trying to determine the kind of power they are dealing with here.

“She didn't mean to hurt me,” she tells him. “She wouldn't hurt anyone.”

“We know. We are not here because we think your daughter is a danger to others. We want to keep her safe and cared for. And you'll be there with her, every step of the way.”

Say what you will but Coulson is very good at sounding reassuring. Skye wants to sound like that some day. They go up the stairs together. The girl's door is slightly ajar. She's obviously not locking herself in there – she's just hiding. Skye understands the cutting sharp difference between the two.

“What's the plan?” she asks Coulson.

“Someone has to go in and talk to her,” he says. “Get her to come out on her own.”

Skye takes off her jacket, her whole body signaling that sorry, Coulson, she's the one going in. He grabs her before she can start, though.

“Skye. What do you think you're doing?”

“ _My job_ ,” she replies. Coulson's fingers tighten a bit around her arm. She understands the gesture for what it is, her voice softer this time: “She's not going to hurt me. She's not going to hurt anyone.”

It takes a couple of beats but he lets her go, the pressure of his fingers slowly diminishing until it's only the memory of a circle of warmth on her skin.

“We'll be out here listening. One word and we'll come in.”

“Seriously, Coulson, don't shoot a thirteen year old.”

She thinks he'll say some SHIELD platitude like _not unless I have to_ , something vaguely protective and manly and obnoxious, but he doesn't, he really doesn't. He just says: “I promise you I won't shoot a thirteen year old.”

It sounds almost like a joke but she takes comfort in knowing he means it.

“Good. That's good policy, boss. We should make it a rule.”

“Be careful.”

“She's not going to hurt me,” she repeats. “But I'm glad you have my back.”

He nods and then he gently nudges her towards the door.

She walks into the room and the girl doesn't even think of stopping her, physically or with a word. She retreats further back into the spot under the windowsill.

Skye takes in the room first. Like a photograph the decoration freezes a precise instant in time. The girl is at that age when she is starting to trade teddy bears for rock-and-roll records but she's only halfway there so there's a bit of both all over the room. It's a nice place – it looks like a room where someone is happy, Skye thinks. There are pictures of the girl with friends glued to the wall above her bed. She has friends. This is important.

As for the girl – 

It's pretty much who you'd expect from a thirteen year old. Not someone with superpowers, just a frightened child. Slight, dressed in clothes designed to make her look older, and an unfortunate fringe covering her eyes.

“You are not wearing a suit like the rest of them,” the girl points out.

Skye throws a look towards the door. She can see the shadow of Coulson and the assault team on the wall.

“Those guys? No, those guys in suits are lame. Well, maybe not all of them are lame, but me, I prefer to roll in jeans and t-shirts. Much more professional.”

She takes a tentative step towards her.

“Don't come closer.”

“It's okay.”

“ _Don't_.”

“My name is Skye. I'm a friend. Can you tell me what happened?”

The girl draws her knees against her chest.

“I hurt my mom.”

“She's okay, I just talked to her. You get worse burns cooking, believe me. She's fine.”

The girl looks up at her, really wanting to believe Skye.

“Is she angry?”

Skye shakes her head, risks advancing another couple of steps.

“Can I sit with you?”

“I'm dangerous.”

“Well, you've warned me, so fair enough. If something happens, it's on me.”

She walks slowly, just in case. She wouldn't want to alarm her. When she reaches her the girl slides along the floor, leaves some room for Skye to sit besides her. That's a good signal.

“What's your name?” she asks. She knows, of course, but that's not the point.

“Teena.”

“Teena? That's two Es or one I?”

“Two Es.”

“That's the cool spelling.”

The girl hugs her knees, clicking her tongue. “You don't have to do that, pretend to be nice to me. I know you just want take me away.”

“I just want to talk. No one's taking you anywhere you don't want to go, I promise that.”

“You just want to talk,” she repeats, incredulous. 

“Yeah. Tell me what's up. Why are you hiding here?” Skye asks.

She looks down. “I burned the school gym down.”

“I used to hate PE too.”

That startles a laugh out of the girl.

“Are you going to lock me up? You should lock me up.”

“We're not locking you up. But I think you should come with us now, Teena.”

“Why?”

“The people I work with... They want to run some tests. And that part is going to suck, I'm not gonna lie to you. But they just want to know how to help you. Don't you want to know, why you can do the things you can do? How to control your power, so that you won't have to hurt anyone else anymore?”

That, of course, is the bit that resonates with the girl, just as Skye knew it would.

“There's no rush,” she tells Teena. “When you are ready. I can stay here all day if you want me to.”

The girl swallows and nods. And smiles.

Ten minutes later the two of them emerge from the room.

 

\+ + +

 

Coulson makes a couple of calls, makes sure the girl is sent to a good facility for the time being, a place run by people he trusts, personally. Doesn't let the NSA guys anywhere near the family.

“Are you coming with me?” the girl asks Skye, as the SHIELD team is ready to take her and her mother to a nearby airbase.

Skye hesitates; it's not that she doesn't want to bail on Coulson and this trip, that doesn't matter – but she thinks it wouldn't be good for Teena, it would be a crutch, she knows exactly why a girl like this one would attach herself to someone like Skye after this afternoon, and Skye's presence would stop her from leaning on her family, herself.

“Not right now. Your mother is coming with you. But I'll find out where you are and I'll come visit soon. That okay?”

The girl understands, because, and Skye remembers it well, has never forgotten, thirteen year olds are smart as fuck – she goes back to her mom.

Coulson brings her a blanket and a cup of coffee, borrowing the gesture from the local police squad, who have arrived at the scene as the excitement dies down.

“I'm not cold,” Skye tells him, taking the blanket anyway. Coulson stirs some milk into the cup before passing it over, not like she can't do it herself, but more like he's distracted. They are both watching the girl and her mother gently led to the SHIELD van.

“They will help her,” Coulson says, attempting to soothe her worries.

“I know. It's nice when we can do something like this, instead of just eliminate targets and lie to the public.”

“You are right. Days like this one, these are the ones I like.”

 

\+ + +

 

He's gone quiet over the course of the meal.

It's been a couple of intense days, she knows. But she doesn't like it when he does that all of the sudden. He's never been overly-chatty but he's always talked _to her_.

It feels to her like it's hours until he speaks, but it's actually just a few minutes. 

“What you've done today is remarkable,” he tells her in a quiet voice, almost breathlessly.

He sounds full of admiration, and that's more than Skye has ever been able to take. She looks away, hoping she's not blushing, then back at Coulson.

“Come on, anyone would have done it. I know you, you'd have walked in that room if I hadn't beat you to it.”

“Perhaps. But I'm not sure I'd have been as successful. Listening to you talking to that girl today, Skye... I was floored.”

She shrugs it off. “I don't know anything about having that kind of powers. I can't even begin to imagine. But I know well what it's like, to feel like you are always going to be alone no matter what, and no one is ever going to be in your corner. That girl just needed the possibility of that not being true. Nothing big, just a _possibility_.”

“You were that possibility,” he states. “For that girl.”

“It's only fair,” Skye says, this time she doesn't look away. “Others have been that _for me_.”

 

\+ + +

 

After this all that's left of Pennsylvania for them is mousebrown pastures, driving at night again, mostly in silence – but it's not a bad silence, it's a silence of camaraderie. This time if he is quiet it's because they are being quiet together. Skye knows the light of her tablet as she works through the night comforts Coulson while he drives, even when they are not saying a word. She takes off her boots and leaves them in the foot well. She wishes she didn't respect Lola so much – she'd rest her bare feet on the dashboard, just to see what Coulson would say. He turns to her, like he could know what she was thinking, and he smiles.

He said they could talk, in this trip.

She didn't imagine _not talking_ could be this nice, too.


	9. Chapter 9

_After the funeral there isn't much to pack – when he decides to sell the house._

_His mother didn't have boxes hidden in the garage, didn't have a single memento of childhood, some fancy like his father's comics and baseball cards. All his mother ever owned was intangible: a lot of hard work, and those nights when she came home late but he was still waiting for her in the kitchen anyway, polishing his homework while his mother ate re-heated food._

_It's much easier to fit some old clothes in a box._

_Phil Coulson wonders what it is like, to exit this life without a trace._

 

\+ + +

 

“Finally some good news,” she tells him over breakfast. Skye loves hotel breakfasts – it's all you can eat and she has a clear affection towards that, for obvious reasons. It's her third toast with jam.

Meanwhile Coulson rejects the bakery items in favor of some fruit, doesn't really get the spirit of all-you-can-eat. “What good news?”

“The guy I was in contact with, the one who owns the legendary #18? He emailed me. He wants us to meet somewhere outside... wait, where was this?” She turns her laptop around so that Coulson can see it. “It's a suburb of Boston.”

“I know.”

She notices his face. He's frozen all over. Not unlike when he was staring at the concert notices a couple of days ago. Not unlike and yet entirely different.

“What? What's wrong?” He says nothing, lets Skye stare at his open expression. “You're from Boston.”

“Not originally but. The neighborhood next to this one, that's where my mother and I moved after my father died.”

Coincidences being what they are in this trip Skye is not even that surprised.

“Oh.” She doesn't want to think too much about Coulson as a little boy, losing his dad, moving into a new town. “You don't have any accent.”

Coulson sits back, pouring orange juice for the two of them.

“Got out when I was eighteen. Also, not the greatest accent in this line of work.”

“The economics of superhero bureaucracy,” she says, trying to lift the mood somehow. 

“So. When are we meeting this dealer?”

“Tomorrow at noon but...”

“Plenty of time to get there, find a place to stay, perfect.”

She knows what he is doing. She would be doing it, if she were in his place. She places one hand on his elbow.

“Hey, if you don't want to go, if the idea is bringing you down, we'll just turn the car around. I will get you that card anywhere else, I promise. You don't have to –“

“It's okay.”

How many times has he said that through the week? How many times has she? And how many of those have been true?

“Are you sure?”

“Skye.”

It's the words around her name, always omitted, the one she understands better.

 

+++

 

“We'll have to drive through the night,” he says.

They are standing in front of the car now. Skye doesn't know why he's waiting to get in, what he is waiting for. He turns to her. “You do it.”

Skye looks around. Who the hell is he talking to?

“You drive,” he repeats, seeing her lack of reaction.

“You're letting me drive Lola?”

“Um uh.” He extends a willing hand, the keys on his palm.

“Are you okay? Do you feel feverish?”

He sighs. “You want to or not?”

“I want, I want. Oh, I want.”

She takes the keys from his hand before he has time to think it twice, listens to his hundreds of admonishments about how to handle this particular car, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, there's this joy at the back of her throat, such a silly thing but such an incredibly important silly thing, she watches Coulson take off his jacket and fold it carefully before climbing into the passenger seat, and Skye is doing this, she's at the wheel already, this moment is entirely hers – he has given it to her.


	10. Chapter 10

_His father was a quiet, prideful, prickly man, he realized when he was older, and perhaps there's something to be said about genetics here._

_There's something to be said about a tradition, among the Coulson men, of leading unremarkable, quietly sad lives._

_(he had been on the path to fulfilling that tradition to the last letter, but then someone stabbed him in the heart, and he had to find a new one, heart and tradition)_

 

 

\+ + +

 

Massachusetts rolls back in a moment, driving by night, Coulson asleep on the passenger seat most of the time. She plays the radio at minimum volume, more like background noise than anything else, switching between late night talk and R&B stations, two things she finds go well with starlight. It's like being alone, but not really: she concentrates on the road, lets herself get lost in it, but then she relaxes and catches sight of Coulson from the corner of her eye, his head dropped to one side – it can't really be that comfortable a position but he looks comfortable. It's weird and she feels like intruding, seeing him asleep. She doesn't mean to, intrude, but she never gets to see him like this, relaxed and unguarded, she wonders if anyone ever gets to do that. And he trusts her to watch over this vulnerable moment and even if he does that thoughtlessly still the idea fills Skye with something warm and proud.

Lola drives like a dream, of course. She's only flashy and out-dated in the way people think Coulson is, too. When you are at the wheel she's friendly, precise, enduring. She most definitely can keep up. Skye loves the car unconditionally, with a simple childish logic: Coulson loves this car, and so Skye does too. They're a team. The two of them, the three of them, they've done this together.

They arrive at their destination with the first light. The world is tender tendrils of pink and blue by the time Coulson wakes up.

He massages his neck for a while.

Skye winces in sympathy. “Cramped?”

“I'm too old to be sleeping in cars,” he states.

Skye sticks out her tongue. “Sure, you are super old and in such a bad shape.”

He smirks; she's missed that.

 

\+ + +

 

“It's a nice little Bed & Breakfast. About five blocks from where I grew up.”

Skye feels like, for once, she has to be the reluctant one. “Really? _You_ want to do that? You've really thrown yourself into this revisiting your past idea.”

“What's the other option?” He asks. “Run away from it?”

All of the sudden Skye realizes she has never gone back to St Agnes. She never means to. This is different, of course. 

“As long as you are okay...”

The B&B is a really nice place, Skye shouldn't be surprised – Coulson is very good at stuff like this, choosing hotels and restaurants and scenic routes. It has hand-painted curtains and a visitor's book in every room.

The rooms are a bit small, but picturesque enough that you don't mind. It's a break from the anonymous hotels they've been staying in – she wonders if Coulson has meant something by booking this one.

She casts her eyes around the room; animal figurines over the mantelpiece, and a red comforter at the end of the bed.

Coulson knocks on her door.

“I'm just across,” he tells her. They are basically the only two rooms on this floor. “Nice. Isn't it?”

And fine, he looks cheerful, or cheerful for _Phil Coulson_ , so maybe she is worrying for nothing.

 

\+ + +

 

“What a jerk,” she mutters again.

If one could eat pie _angrily_ Skye is doing it right now. Which is a shame, because she really wanted to enjoy some pie, she was looking forward to it. Coulson, more amused at her gestures than disappointed at how the day has turned out, is trying to calm her down.

“It's just a card.”

“It's the principle,” she snarls.

They had been waiting twenty minutes in the café when Skye received an email from the seller saying someone had offered him more money and he had sold the card elsewhere. Was there no honor in the world? Skye wonders. Not even between collectors? That's a grim world to live it.

So they had to say goodbye to Card Number Eighteen, a rare snapshot of Captain Rogers in his army uniform, not his superhero uniform.

Skye stabs the pecan pie with her fork.

“What a jerk. He made us drive all the way up here for nothing.”

“It's okay. Stop torturing the food.”

“I'm really sorry, sir. I brought you here, I feel this is all my fault.”

“It's not. Stop saying that. It's not your fault.”

Coulson is looking around them constantly, through the window, in some strange restless state.

“What's up?” Skye inquires but returns her attention to the ravaged pie immediately.

“It's funny. I think this is – _yes_. My old high school is three blocks from where we're standing.”

Her head shots up.

“Can we go see it?” she asks, on a whim, on a ridiculous, purely unconscious whim. She's already regretting the words.

“My old school?”

“I'm curious,” she explains, candid.

To her understandable surprise Coulson says yes without his usual protestations, doesn't ask exactly what she is curious about.

 

\+ + +

 

She had expected more from it.

It's just a building – gray and public and parts of it have seen better days. Closed up for the weekend. Skye examines the fence, trying for weaknesses. She could probably slip in, but something tells her Coulson is not in the mood to commit a crime today. Or just in general.

“I had hoped we could break in, take a look at your old classroom. There's probably a picture of you winning some sports competition inside a glass case somewhere.”

“Probably,” he admits, casually, but inside he's obviously gloating.

The mere idea makes Skye's head feel like it'll explode. “I was joking. You were varsity?”

“Basketball,” he replies.

“But you're not that tall.”

“But I was _that good_.”

Skye makes a face. He can get really insufferable some times. Which, she guesses, is part of his unusual charm.

They wander around for a while. Coulson frowns at the renovated gym building, the new science wing. They place had been newly constructed when he transferred. That's more than a lifetime ago, in his particular case, he says.

Skye asks which year did he graduate.

He tells her.

“That feels so weird. I wasn't even born.” Coulson gives her a blank look. “I don't mean it like you are so old, because you are not. I meant it like, it's weird, there's so much about you...”

“That you don't know?”

“That I _can't_ know.”

How can she explain it to him? She can't. It's a weirdly possessive, hopeless idea – resenting a past he can't share with her. Why would he want to share it is another matter. Of course she can't know him when he was seventeen, anymore than he could have known her when she was seventeen, that's over – but at least in his case it would have been technically possible. She shakes her head at his question because of course, he can't understand.

They are standing in front of the main entrance and Coulson reaches his hand to her neck, slipping his fingers under the strap of one of her necklaces. He holds the cheap stone in his palm for a moment.

“No, I understand,” he says, then the necklace slips through his hand and falls back into place.

 

\+ + +

 

They are still walking. They've been walking for a while now, the day turning into a blue afternoon, almost electric. Skye doesn't ask where they are going. She follows him.

“It's been a weird day, uh?”

“Um.” He pushes his hands into his pockets. He's wearing his black suit, a dark gray tie and he's gone back to looking exactly like himself. Skye prefers it this way.

She looks at the street, how they have quietly melted into a residential past, a kind of derelict present. Not a rough-looking part of town, just abandoned, nature a bit overgrown and the eerie lack of traffic noise.

“Where are we?” she asks.

“My old neighborhood.”

“Oh, wow, the day just got weird _er_.”

He turns to see her face. “I'm sorry.”

Skye pays more attention to their surrounding now, knowing this is where he grew up. Knowing this is where he probably grew up fast.

His old neighborhood is three-story houses, little ponds in green parks, wide streets, parents' aspirations.

His old house is a third floor converted into a whole flat. Coulson doesn't hesitate in locating it, even though it's exactly identical to the rest of the houses on this street.

Skye studies his face as he looks up at the windows, his eyes darting over them until he finds the one to his old room. Even in a moment like this he is hard to read. Except she is good at this. He had said so himself.

“I imagined you lived in a single house, I don't know why,” she tells him.

“You _imagined_. You spend a lot of time thinking about my childhood?”

“Some,” she replies truthfully.

He shakes his head at her in disbelief. “We used to live in a house, with my father, we had backyard, and a dog. But then we couldn't afford it. There were two other families living in this building. We got the top floor. It was nice. More than enough space for a kid and his mom.”

He walks up the front door – for a moment Skye is sure he is going to ring the bell, ask the current tenants to let him have a look. But this is the forgotten edge of the neighborhood, and it doesn't look like anyone lives here anymore, the neglect patent on the grayed facade. Coulson goes up to the last step and sits on the marble-like material of the stairs, a little worse for the wear but still a nice entrance. He sits looking out, half in mourning, like an exiled king taking one last look at his domain before disappearing into the mist. Skye is thinking about Coulson as a boy, perched right here in hot summer afternoons, waiting for dinner, playing on the street with friends until his mother called.

She, too, walks up those stairs, and sits besides him, looking out at the line of houses, the ones exactly like this one (but never like this one), in front of them. This is not her story, she knows that, but she can't help feel this is part of who she is now. She watches as Coulson's expression turns from regret to some sort of sweet longing, remembered joy. She waits for him to relax against her touch (shoulder, knees, pressed against each other by seeming accident, companionable and undemanding) before she speaks.

"What did she do? You mother."

"What mothers usually do." She catches the regret in that voice, but also the pride.

"Waitress?"

"For a bit, before she married."

Skye tries again. 

"Nurse."

He turns, impressed. "Good guess. _Night_ nurse."

She pulls away and then sways back against his shoulder; he's under her unrelenting, gentle gaze.

"Yes, I can see it,” she says brightly. “I understand how you turned out the way you did. I wish I'd met her, your mother, she must have been great."

He looks at her like she must have been making fun of him, surely.

"You are a very unusual girl, Skye."

She doesn't answer. He's probably right, Then again he's not much more normal himself. Skye slips one arm under his, locks it over his elbow, pulling him close to her. Coulson lets her, one could say he even welcomes the gesture to some extent. To the extent where he brushes his lips across her temple when she moves to rest her head on his shoulder. He looks out at the street, Skye can only imagine how many memories are assaulting him from this view. She hopes they are happy memories.

She sighs against his jacket, feeling a familiar tension rise. She pushes it down, like she always does, but it's there, the way she presses her knee to his leg a little too impatiently. But she doesn't want to. She holds it in.

That's when it starts to rain. Hard. 

Thunder right above their heads and in a moment they are seeking refuge under the front door. Like a flood, like a one-bed room, like starlight, it's one of those things you have to see for yourself, or you'd think it's made up. Skye would have thought it's all made up – if she was being told this story by someone else.

“Oh shit.”

“And we left Lola in the parking,” Coulson points out.

“What do we do now?”

“The B&B is not that far,” he says, taking off his jacket and lifting it over both their heads. “We run?”

They run.

 

\+ + +

 

Hearts in their throats from running, they have run.

They are still running, somehow, running upstairs to their rooms, keys held tightly into the palms of their wet hands.

They are both laughing.

(they've been laughing most of the way here; hearts in their throats and mouths)

“Well, this is me,” Skye says, almost a giggle, and turns towards the door to her room.

“No, wait, come here,” Coulson says, reaching, grabbing, yanking her arm towards him.

Skye doesn't understand, lets herself be led across the hallway, his thumb brushing her palm, then into his room, closing the door behind then, and then in a moment Coulson's hands are flat against her hips and her back is against the wall and then his mouth is on hers, tasting of coffee and rain and lingering laughter.

Then she understands.

She opens her mouth under his and grabs his shoulders tightly, cold fingers twisted into damp fabric. Coulson pushes his tongue against hers. It's hungry, he offers himself up in that kiss. Skye never thought he could be like this – open and incomplete and completely exposed. Maybe it's this place, maybe it's everything that's happened in this trip, slowly eroding him. Skye hopes in part it's her. Coulson takes her hand, lacing their fingers together.

“Skye.”

She nods. She understands. Everything he can't say right now sits at each end of her name, the same way it always has.

They are both shivering from the cold, their clothes sticking to their bodies like a second, freezing skin. Hands and mouths mainly following warmth. He nips at her lip and Skye tangles one hand in his hair, the other snaked up the back of his shirt.

She grinds her hips against him, the pressure inside her chest suddenly unbearable – it's not enough that they are kissing. He slips his hands under her shirt, pressing his fingers into the grooves of her ribcage. She shivers, some of it it's these fucking soaking clothes, most of it is just Coulson.

It's her who backs them up against his bed, Coulson looking like he can't untangle himself from kissing her long enough to make that decision.

But once they fall on the bed it's easy, he pushes her into the mattress, brushing off the strands of hair sticking to her damp face. His hands are everywhere, struggling under layers of wet clothing. He is tugging at her shirt, needs to sit up so that he can pull it over her head. He lies her on the bed again, running his palms over her chest and stomach.

“Come here,” she says, undoing his tie with one hand, in almost one swift movement.

She struggles to peel off the shirt from his body, and then the undershirt, so soaked that she can see the scar on his chest through the fabric. She pauses her hand there for a moment, over his heart, as she looks up at him, giving him a shy smile.

Getting her jeans off is a nightmare, but they both laugh, complicit, at their combined incompetence. When they manage Skye kicks them away, across the room, feeling triumphant. Now it's her bare legs under and against Coulson's hands. Skye watches the contrasts between her darker skin and the pale underside of his forearms.

“God, Skye, you're so –“ he starts, then stops, too much emotion on his face for a simple, clichéd line.

He slides down the bed, grabbing her thighs, kissing the inside. He readies himself to go down on her but Skye lets out a frustrated growl and stops him. Under any other circumstances she's welcome it, she'd be ecstatic to, but right now she just wants him inside her.

“Later. Later I'll do amazing things to you but right now – _please_ – Coulson, I want... I _need_...”

He obeys, understands. He slides up again and kisses her hard.

He shoves his pants out of the way unceremoniously. Skye reaches and wraps her fingers around him; even though it's fucking freezing he's already half hard, it doesn't take her much time, getting him ready – the way she extracts little desperate laughter with every touch. It's a gorgeous noise. Skye watches his face closely, eyes closed, as he lets himself be held like this. After a while he pushes her away, his little apologetic smile speaking volumes, and that's fine with her, Skye wants this and she wants it right now.

“Do you have something...?” he asks.

“That's okay. I'm a big girl, Coulson, that's taken care of. But I like that you asked, it's important.”

She smiles, because she never imagined talking contraceptives with Phil Coulson could be sexy but it is a bit sexy. Maybe she's just gone insane.

“Didn't want to kill the mood,” he mutters, kissing her neck.

“It's you – I don't think anything could kill the mood for me.”

There's that look again; he's looked at her this way a hundred times (except now they are naked, of course) and Skye doesn't know exactly what it means, but now she knows it means something.

He moves between her legs; the skin of his thighs a bit cold from the damp clothes, she reaches hot hands to warm him, and to drive him up against her. Then he holds her head in his hands, looking into her eyes with a seriousness even sharper than this serious moment between them.

"I want to see the world the way you see it," he says, his voice frayed at the edges.

Skye reaches to touch her palms to his wrists, holding the hands which are holding her. She arches to kiss him, then she slides down under his weight and in a moment he's inside her, with the difficulty of rain clinging to their bodies, with the ease of this overwhelming desire. He lets out a moan when he starts moving into her and when she starts moving to match him, and he sounds so needy and desperate and _happy_ , a sound she didn't think he could make, and it's that first push and that sound, and the weight of his body and his mouth and his cock, it feels fucking amazing.

 

\+ + +

 

She doesn't know how long they've stayed like this: limbs entangled, nightfall tapping at the window. She switches on the bedside lamp so she can see his face.

“Your hair is still wet,” he says, his voice a bit hoarse.

He holds dark locks of it between thumb and index. His glance is full of – – _oh_ ; Skye remembers, earlier this week, another hotel, she opened the door to her room for him one morning, straight from the shower, and she couldn't understand why Coulson was looking at her damp hair like that. She gets it now. Maybe she's been a bit of an idiot too, all this time.

Their clothes, or the ruined still dripping remnants of them, are scattered in a mess on the floor. They have put some towels on the bed – they messed that, too, their skin drying on the sheets and on each other. Skye threw a blanket over them, trying to stop them from catching their deaths.

He drifts in and out, the tension of these past days like being slowly drained from him, drop by drop. Skye watches him go through a cycle of asleep-awake-asleep that lasts mere seconds. She enjoys the impunity of watching him, because she has the feeling he is not going to catch her and complain. When he closes his eyes Skye takes the chance to run the palm of her hand over his body, explore the crooks and edges with a ghost touch.

She draws circles on the soft hair above his navel.

Coulson opens an eye. “Enjoying yourself?”

“What's not to enjoy?”

“I thought girls liked hot boys in pick-up tracks,” he sighs.

She shakes her head against his collarbone. She traces the deep lines around his mouth, trying to claim that bit for herself, she likes it so much.

“How little you know about girls, sir. Girls don't like hot boys in pick-up trucks, girls like handsome gentlemen with flying cars,” she says and he laughs. Quieter, near his mouth, and with one hand pressed above his heart: “No. Girls like _good men_.”

He arches to meet her mouth.

“What?” he asks, because she's made a face, _again_.

She sighs. “This has been my favorite, favorite trip ever. Thank you.”

Coulson sighs, too, but it's a different kind. He rolls his eyes a bit, and he threads his hand in her damp hair, feeling the muscles on the back of her neck, applying pressure to the tender spots, raising little, delighted moans from her in his wake.

“The team is coming to pick us up at eight. Perhaps we should get some rest,” he says.

Skye raises both her eyebrows. Like she is going to let go of this so easily, even for sleep, now that she's found it. Good luck with that. She slips her leg between his to make the point.

And Coulson understands, “Okay, my bad,” he says, and he laughs and comes back to her for another kiss.


	11. epilogue

_It started with a wristwatch. You could say that. It started with one solitary Captain America card hidden inside a stack of baseball ones, a teenage Phil Coulson cleaning out his late father's remaining possessions._

_It started with a complete set._

_It started when he died._

_It started when he lost them, and decided to begin again._

_It started with some trading cards. You could say that._

_But of course he could already see, when it started, that it was just an excuse._

 

 

\+ + +

 

Unpacking is a depressing affair.

She doesn't want to.

Not three hours ago she was lying on a bed in Boston, engulfed by the warmth of another body.

It's not that she didn't want to see the team – upon arrival she gave Simmons such an enthusiastic hug that Simmons asked if everything was right, one thought away from ordering a full check-up, just in case.

No, she is happy to be _home_.

And they have work to do. Follow up on Teena's case for a start.

There's mail on her bed and for a moment Skye doesn't know what it could be, for a moment she has forgotten all about the trading cards.

Coulson swings by her bunk just as she has finished organizing them. Not that she has been waiting for him, but she was hoping he'd show up.

“Here,” she says, throwing the stack of cards at him. “Told you they would have arrived by the time we finished.”

Coulson looks at them, the last remaining. Now he has a complete set. Well, complete except for one. Number Eighteen.

"I'm sorry you didn't get that one last card," she says. It's a downer, if she thinks about it. It was her mission, the mission he had trusted her with. If he gives her some more time she's sure she...

Coulson sits on the bed by her side. She suddenly remembers three hours ago they had been in each other's arms. Now she doesn't know exactly where they stand – they haven't talked about it.

"It's okay,” he tells her. “It will surface elsewhere, eventually. In the end the trip wasn't about that."

"What was it about?" she asks, earnest.

Coulson narrows his eyes.

"Okay,” she breathes, suddenly on the verge of _possible_ , “because I didn't want to _suppose_ or anything. Maybe it was a road-trip thing or –"

" _Skye_."

He grabs her head in his hands and when he kisses her it's just as hungry, as startling as last night. She moves against him before she knows she's doing it, kissing and pulling and kissing him again like a thirst she can only quench through many small gulps. Coulson runs the palms of his hands along her arms – a gesture so intimate in its smallness that it somehow overpowers even the fact that they've had sex. She wants him to do it again, angles her body to see if she can make him but then his hands slip under her jacket and _that's even better_.

“It was never about the cards,” he tells her. “At some point even I realized: I was looking for an excuse to spend some time with you.”

She fixes him an incredulous gaze.

“At some point? What point?”

He places his hand on her back, pulling her to him, until her legs are practically all over his lap in an attempt to facilitate more bits of their bodies touching.

“Early,” he says, leaning to kiss her and his voice a kind of tiny, defeated plea. “ _So early_.”

She grabs his collar, pulling him closer, but still too far. She huffs, like something about the situation is irrevocably hopeless.

“I'm sorry,” she tells him. “I'll have to trust you on this. Do the profiling, it's easy to see I'm not used to getting things I really, really want.”

“Then get used to it,” Coulson tells her, a proper order.

Skye plants her hands firmly on his chest, pushing him away for a moment, with a bright, delighted grin on her face.

“Oh, _wow_ , very smooth, sir.”

He tugs at her sleeve, holding her closer, and he's smirking: “I thought we had already agreed that I am, very smooth.”

The kiss is still hungry, open and yet familiar. Coulson makes a gorgeous, falling noise at the back of his throat when she runs her tongue across the roof of his mouth, and he doesn't seem to mind that they are on the Bus, a work space, and people could just walk in. He doesn't seem to mind anything at all, not the way she's ruining his clean suit with fingers twisting into his jacket, pulling at his tie. The only thing he seems to care about is kissing her and the way her hips feel under his hands.

Skye pulls away from him and the kiss, wanting to see what kind of light is in his eyes. She nods, satisfied with what she sees there.

Coulson in love is a beautiful sight.

**Author's Note:**

> Check out the worderful [indie movie poster](http://fuckyeahskoulson.tumblr.com/post/91864782930/skoulson-indie-movie-poster-for-becketteds-fic) the wonderful hamsterfactor made for me.


End file.
